Sunday, 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 12:00AMSaturday, January 18, 2014
1882 Birthday of A. A. Milne (1882-1956), best-known as creator of the Winnie-the-Pooh books, but also a prolific Broadway playwright, author of Mr. Pim Passes By, The Truth About Blayds, Be…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, January 17, 2014
1911 Love is never easy, especially when a woman is the object of affection for The Scarecrow. Percy MacKaye used "Feathertop," Nathaniel Hawthorne's tale as a starting point f…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, January 14, 2014
1903 Opening night of The Little Princess, Frances Hodgson Burnett play about a child, much in the same vein as her The Secret Garden. Little Princess will run just 34 performances.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMMonday, January 13, 2014
1925 Birthday of one of Broadway's all-time greatest leading ladies, Gwen Verdon (1925-2000). She was nominated for the Tony Award as Best Actress or Featured Actress in a Musical six ti…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, January 12, 2014
1878 Hungarian playwright Ferenc Molnár (1878-1952) is born today in Budapest. He will write The Good Fairy, The Play's the Thing, The Guardsman, The Swan and Liliom, the latter of which wi…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThursday, January 2, 2014
1910 American actress Agnes Booth dies today at age of 63. She was the wife of Junius Brutus Booth, Jr. and the sister-in-law of Edwin Booth.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMWednesday, December 4, 2013
1860 Birthday of Lillian Russell (1860-1922), who became the epitome of Gilded Age female sex appeal and stage presence starting in vaudeville at Tony Pastor's Theatre and graduating to …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, November 30, 2013
1924 Henry Oscar and Esme Biddle are the leads of Byron by Alice Law, at the Century Theatre in Bayswater, England. In a very small role is someone named Laurence Olivier.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:01AMFriday, November 29, 2013
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 beginni…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMMonday, November 11, 2013
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 12:00AMSunday, November 10, 2013
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 for the…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, May 21, 2013
1929 Some of the highlights of A Night in Venice are Ted Healy wrestling bears and the choreography of Busby Berkeley. This revue will run at the Shubert Theatre on Broadway for 22 weeks.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, April 2, 2013
1923 There's trouble At Mrs. Beam's this boardinghouse keeper thinks one of her guests is a killer. There will be 280 performances at London's Royalty Theatre of this C. K. Mu…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMMonday, April 1, 2013
1918 Actor-manager Henry Miller opens his theatre in New York City. It's designed to seat 1,000 spectators and capable of handling the latest staging innovations. In 1998 the theatre is …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:02AMSunday, March 31, 2013
1922 Birthday of actor Richard Kiley (1922-1999), who will create memorable roles in mid-20th century musicals, including Kismet, Redhead, No Strings and his signature role, the title charac…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, March 30, 2013
1858 Birthday of DeWolf Hopper (1858-1935), vaudeville comedian and musical comedy star, who was featured in Wang, Hoity-Toity and many early Gilbert & Sullivan productions. His signatur…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, March 29, 2013
1950 Joshua Logan transports the action of Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard to 19th century Louisiana for his adaptation, The Wisteria Trees. It will run 165 performances at the Martin…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThursday, March 28, 2013
1939 Philip Barry tells The Philadelphia Story at the Shubert Theatre in New York. Katharine Hepburn, Van Heflin, Shirley Booth, and Joseph Cotten star. Robert Edmond Jones designs the sets …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMWednesday, March 27, 2013
1924 Long before Madonna sang about Vogueing, there were the Vogues of 1924. This revue at the Shubert Theatre stars Fred Allen and Jimmy Savo. It will run for almost three months.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, March 26, 2013
1905 Actor Maurice Barrymore dies today. He was father to Lionel Barrymore, Ethel Barrymore and John Barrymore. He was 57 years old.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1905 Actor Maurice Barrymore dies today. He was father to Lionel Barrymore, Ethel Barrymore and John Barrymore. He was 57 years old.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMMonday, March 25, 2013
1871 Birthday of Lee Shubert, one of the three legendary Shubert brothers who will found the theatre-owning and producing empire, the Shubert Organization.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, March 24, 2013
1909 Irish poet and playwright John Millington Synge dies today. He penned numerous plays including Riders to the Sea and The Playboy of the Western World. For the latter he traveled to the …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, March 23, 2013
1940 It's Separate Rooms for an actress who'd rather sleep with her pet Chihuahua than her playwright husband. Glenda Farrell and Lyle Talbot are the twosome. This comedy by Alan Din…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, March 22, 2013
1912 Karl Malden is born in Chicago, Illinois today. He will appear in numerous Broadway productions, most memorably as Mitch in the original A Streetcar Named Desire.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThursday, March 21, 2013
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
1828 Birth of Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906), who will revolutionize world theatre with his realistic dramas A Doll's House, Hedda Gabler, Ghosts, Rosmersholm and Peer Gyn…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, March 19, 2013
1872 Birthday of singer/actress Anna Held, future wife of Florenz Ziegfeld, and the classic sexy French flirt of her era. She will play this role in a series of musical vehicles including La…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMMonday, March 18, 2013
1927 Birthday of composer John Kander, who will compose scores for Broadway's Cabaret, Chicago, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Woman of the Year, Zorba and other musicals.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, March 17, 2013
1924 Doris Keane and Jacob Ben-Ami are Welded. Eugene O'Neill's drama outlines a marriage that is stronger than the couple realizes. It lasts three weeks at the 39th Street Theatre.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM 
