Saturday, November 29, 2014
1895 Birthday of legendary film choreographer Busby Berkeley (1895-1976), whose career will be launched with a 12-show burst of creativity on Broadway between the end of 1926 and the…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, November 28, 2014
1923 Lionel Barrymore stars in David Belasco's Laugh, Clown, Laugh!, the Pagliacci-like story of a middle-aged clown who adopts a young girl, but later, as she grows into womanho…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThursday, November 27, 2014
1906 Anna Held is The Parisian Model who inherits money mysteriously. Harry B. Smith provides the book and lyrics to Max Hoffman's score. While the show is directed by Julian Mitchell, t…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMWednesday, November 26, 2014
1864 Edwin Booth opens a four-month stand in Hamlet at the old Winter Garden Theatre.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, November 25, 2014
1882 U.S. premiere of W. S. Gilbert & Arthur Sullivan's operetta Iolanthe, about fairies and other supernatural folk who get involved with Parliamentary peers.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMMonday, November 24, 2014
1849 Birthday of author Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849-1924), author of several Broadway plays in the early the 20th century, including Little Lord Fauntleroy, The Little Princess, The Pr…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, November 22, 2014
1937 Ethel Barrymore and Dudley Digges star in The Ghost of Yankee Doodle. Written by Sidney Howard, the play deals with a woman pacifist whose industrialist family stands to profit from sel…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:37AMFriday, November 21, 2014
1694 Birthday of French author François Marie Arouet, better known as Voltaire (1694-1778) whose satirical novel "Candide" served as source material for the 1956 Leo…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThursday, November 20, 2014
1922 The Lucky One is the brother who doesn't get the girl in this A. A. Milne play. Staged at the Theatre Guild by Theodore Komisarjevsky with a cast including Dennis King, Romney Brent…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:30AMWednesday, November 19, 2014
1906 George Arliss and Mrs. Fiske star in The New York Idea, Langdon Mitchell's play which runs 66 performances at the Lyric Theatre.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, November 18, 2014
1836 Birthday of satirist William S. Gilbert, later to achieve immortality as the lyricist half of the Gilbert & Sullivan operetta-writing team that produced The Mikado, The Pira…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMMonday, November 17, 2014
1901 Birthday of actor/director/producer/teacher/acting coach Lee Strasberg (1901-1982) in Austria-Hungary. As a founder of the Group Theatre and Artistic Director of the Actors Stud…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, November 16, 2014
1889 Playwright and director George S. Kaufman (1889-1961) is born today in Pittsburgh. A former newsman, Kaufman will make his mark with the comedy Dulcy in 1921, and will go on to writ…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, November 15, 2014
1875 British comic operetta titans W. S. Gilbert & Arthur Sullivan make their U.S. debut today with Trial by Jury at the Eagle Variety Theatre, where it runs 8 performances.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, November 14, 2014
1905 Blanche Bates is Minnie, sweetheart of the mines in Girl of the Golden West. She tends a saloon, fugitive lover and pursuing sheriff. Writer, director, producer David Belasco was no str…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThursday, November 13, 2014
1833 Birthday of master actor Edwin Booth (1833-1893), a major interpreter of Shakespeare and brother to actor Junius Brutus Booth and presidential assassin John Wilkes Booth. Broadway&#…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMWednesday, November 12, 2014
1874 Birthday of pioneering African-American performer-composer Bert Williams (1874-1922), who wrote music for Broadway's In Dahomey (1903) and Abyssinia (1906), but achieved…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, November 11, 2014
1872 Birthday of Maude Adams (1872-1953), Broadway's first Peter Pan, who originated the role in 1904, and returned at least three times through 1915.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMMonday, November 10, 2014
1900 Opening night of legendary musical Floradora at the Casino Theatre for a 553-performance run — the first major hit of the 20th century. The production is remembered principally fo…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, November 9, 2014
1818 Playwright and novelist Ivan Turgenev is born in Russia. His most notable play is A Month in the Country, but he will make a bit of history in 2002 when his 150-year-old play Fo…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThursday, January 30, 2014
1911 Hugh Herbert Hipple is born today in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. After dropping two H's, he will become suave actor Hugh Marlowe. In 1940 he will appear in Elmer Rice's Flight T…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMWednesday, January 29, 2014
1860 Birthday of Anton Chekhov (1860-1904), one of the fathers of modern drama, whose comparatively small oeuvre includes classics The Cherry Orchard, The Three Sisters, The Seagull and Uncl…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, January 28, 2014
1908 J. Lucifer Mephisto tempts a sculptor to be unfaithful in The Soul Kiss. Produced by Florenz Ziegfeld, this musical comedy stars Ralph Herz, Adeline Genee, and Cecil Lean. Harry B. Smit…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMMonday, January 27, 2014
1885 Birthday of master tunesmith Jerome Kern (1885-1945), who will write scores to many Broadway shows, including classics, Show Boat, Sally, Very Good Eddie and Roberta. His songs will res…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:01AMSaturday, January 25, 2014
1915 It'll be 90 in the Shade for only 40 performances. The unpaid actors will refuse to go on in this musical with a Jerome Kern score and book by Guy Bolton. Richard Carle and Marie Ca…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, January 24, 2014
1776 Birthday of E. T. A. Hoffmann (1776-1822), whose stories formed the basis of the ballets Coppelia and The Nutcracker.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThursday, January 23, 2014
1922 It's booze, jazz and The National Anthem. J. Hartley Manners' work showcases his wife, Laurette Taylor, and Ralph Morgan. This drama will run at the Henry Miller Theatre for 114…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMWednesday, January 22, 2014
1912 Stop in at the Liberty Theatre in New York and see just what it takes when you're Elevating a Husband. Edward Everett Horton, Conway Tearle and Jessie Carter are among the cast of t…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, January 21, 2014
1903 Dorothy, The Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion are first seen on Broadway today in the original musical The Wizard of Oz, with music by Paul Tietjens and book and lyrics by L…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMMonday, January 20, 2014
1896 Say good morning, George. Actually it was "Nathan" then Nathan Birnbaum born today. As George Burns, he and Gracie Allen will become headliners of vaudeville. Together they…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, January 19, 2014
1887 Birthday of Alexander Woollcott (1887-1943), actor, author, radio personality, theatre critic of The New York Times, and one of the original members of the Algonquin Round Table is born…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM 
