Wednesday, November 21, 2012
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 Leonard Ber…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, November 20, 2012
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 12:00AMMonday, November 19, 2012
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 12:00AMSunday, November 18, 2012
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 Pirates of P…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, November 17, 2012
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 Studio, he w…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, November 16, 2012
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 write do…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThursday, November 15, 2012
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 12:00AMWednesday, November 14, 2012
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 12:00AMTuesday, November 13, 2012
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's…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMMonday, November 12, 2012
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 even greate…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, November 9, 2012
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 Fortune's …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, June 23, 2012
1927 Birthday of Robert Louis Fosse, better known as Bob Fosse (1927-1987), master director-choreographer known for his sexy hip-swiveling dances in shows including The Pajama Game, Sweet Ch…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, June 12, 2012
1961 American ideals and and practices are put on trial as The Red Eye of Love opens at New York's Living Theatre. The satire by Arnold Weinstein will last 169 performances.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, June 10, 2012
1922 Birthday of Frances Ethel Gumm, better known as Judy Garland (1922-1969), star of numerous Hollywood film musicals including The Wizard of Oz. Her Broadway experience consisted of three…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, June 9, 2012
1891 Birthday of composer Cole Porter (1891-1964), whose witty, urbane songs will grace five decades of musicals, including Anything Goes, Can-Can, Gay Divorce, Silk Stockings and his greate…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, June 8, 2012
1925 Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart make their lyric and songwriting debut in The Garrick Gaieties at Broadway's Garrick Theatre. In the cast are Sterling Holloway, Sanford Meisner, Phi…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThursday, June 7, 2012
1909 Birthday of Broadway star Jessica Tandy (1909-1994), who created many landmark roles including Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, Agnes in A Delicate Balance and Fonsia in The …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMWednesday, June 6, 2012
1954 Playwright and actor Harvey Fierstein is born today. Fierstein will win Tony Awards for writing and performing in his play Torch Song Trilogy, as well as for his book for the musical La…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, June 5, 2012
1939 Actor James Barton, a star of the Broadway hit Tobacco Road, returns to the show today after having been fired the previous February after quarreling with his co-stars backstage. Box of…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMMonday, June 4, 2012
1968 Stage and screen actress Dorothy Gish dies today in Rapallo, Italy. Her first New York stage appearance was in 1903 in East Lynne. She began her film career in 1912, but resumed her sta…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, June 3, 2012
1866 Birthday of playwright and producer George Broadhurst (1866-1952), responsible for dozens of plays and musicals, including the first stage adaptation of Tarzan of the Apes. Also, namesa…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, June 2, 2012
1954 Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II's Carousel is revived for a ten-week run at the New York City Center. In the cast are Barbara Cook and Jo Sullivan.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, June 1, 2012
1914 The Ziegfeld Follies of 1914 stars Ed Wynn. Leon Errol dances and co-directs with Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr. There will be 112 performances at the New Amsterdam Theatre in New York.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, May 29, 2012
1951 Performer Fanny Brice dies today in Hollywood at age 60. She started in showbiz by winning a series of amateur nights at vaudeville theatres in Brooklyn, then graduated to Burlesque as …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMMonday, May 28, 2012
1940 Victor Moore, William Gaxton and Vera Zorina star in the Irving Berlin musical Louisiana Purchase, which runs 444 performances at the Imperial Theatre.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, May 27, 2012
1953 John Mills is The Uninvited Guest at London's St. James's Theatre. Written by his wife, Mary Hayley Bell, and co-starring Cathleen Nesbitt and Joan Greenwood, this story of a ma…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, May 26, 2012
1913 One hundred and twelve actors gather at the Pabst Grand Circle Hotel near Columbus Circle in New York City and vote to form Actors’ Equity Association, the union representing Amer…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, May 25, 2012
1878 Birthday of legendary dancer Bill "Bojangles" Robinson (1878-1949), whose Broadway appearances will include Memphis Bound!, The Hot Mikado and Blackbirds of 1928.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThursday, May 24, 2012
1925 Godfrey Tearle is Hamlet in the Fellowship Players production at the Prince of Wales Theatre. The Fellowship offers Sunday performances so these employed professionals have the chance t…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMWednesday, May 23, 2012
1904 The Southerners, with a score by black composer Will Marion Cook, is the first time an entire black chorus is used in a show with a white cast. Lead Eddie Leonard appears in blackface i…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, May 22, 2012
1907 Birthday of Laurence Olivier (1907-1989), preeminent British actor of his generation. His dozens of notable appearances included Romeo and Juliet, The Entertainer, Becket, Private Lives…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM 
