Tuesday, 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 12:00AMSunday, May 20, 2012
1919 Guy Bolton and P.G. Wodehouse call this Kissing Time at London's Winter Garden Theatre. Ivan Caryll provides the music for this tale of complications arising when French ladies carr…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, May 19, 2012
1924 The four Marx Brothers star in I'll Say She Is at the Casino Theatre in New York. This revue, with a book by Will B. Johnstone and music by Tom Johnstone, takes the boys through mur…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, May 18, 2012
1923 Sweet Nell of Old Drury runs beyond the season at the 48th Street Theatre in New York. Alfred Lunt stars as Charles II and Laurette Taylor is his mistress Nell Gwynne. Lynn Fontanne and…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMWednesday, May 16, 2012
1946 "No you can't get a man with a gun," but when you're Ethel Merman you can sure try. She's the star of Rodgers & Hammerstein's production of Annie Get Your …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, May 15, 2012
1922 Father and son playwriting team J.C. and Elliott Nugent come up with Kempy. They also star in this comedy of mixed-up lovers, staged by Augustin Duncan. Performances will run at Broadwa…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMMonday, May 14, 2012
1931 Playwright, producer David Belasco dies today in New York City. He began his theatrical life as a child actor in California and started writing plays in his twenties. He adapted the Joh…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, May 13, 2012
1907 Writer-playwright Daphne du Maurier is born to actor Gerald and actress Muriel du Maurier. Daphne will later adapt her novel Rebecca into a play.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, May 12, 2012
1905 Theatrical producer Sam S. Shubert dies today in a train accident. His brothers Lee and J.J. will honor him by naming many of the theaters they are to build after him, including their f…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, May 11, 2012
1903 In The Runaways with a book by Addison Brukhardt and a score by Raymond Hubbell, the hero is transported to a tropical island and will be made a king. The catch? He must marry the queen…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThursday, May 10, 2012
1838 John Wilkes Booth (1838-1865), perhaps the most infamous actor in American history, is born today. The son of actor Junius Brutus Booth, and brother of actors Junius Brutus Booth Jr. an…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMWednesday, May 9, 2012
1860 Birthday of James M. Barrie (1860-1937), British author and playwright whose creations will include What Every Woman Knows, The Little Minister, The Admirable Crichton and the work that…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, May 8, 2012
1892 Birthday of opera singer Ezio Pinza (1892-1957) who made two memorable Broadway appearances, in Fanny and South Pacific, the latter creating the role of Emile deBecque and singing "…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMMonday, May 7, 2012
1915 Among the dead after the sinking of the Lusitania are producer-manager Charles Frohman and playwright Charles Klein. Frohman's first success was Shenandoah. In 1893 he opened the Em…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, May 6, 2012
1912 Richard Le Gallienne's Orestes stars Edyth Olive and Rathmel Wilson. It plays at London's Boudoir Theatre.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, May 5, 2012
1955 Baseball, ballet and Gwen Verdon provide the slugging power in Damn Yankees. Adapted from Douglass Wallop's book, The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant, by Wallop and George Abbott,…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, May 4, 2012
1859 Birthday of A.L. Erlanger (1859-1930), who, as half of the team of Klaw and Erlanger, produced dozens of Broadway shows during the first three decades of the 20th century, including Dra…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThursday, May 3, 2012
1919 Birthday of Betty Comden, Broadway lyricist and librettist, mainly in collaboration with Adolph Green. Her works include On the Town, Wonderful Town, Peter Pan, On the Twentieth Century…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMWednesday, May 2, 2012
1887 Birthday of Vernon Castle who, with wife and dancing partner Irene Castle, would redefine not just what dancing represented on Broadway, but the kind of music used for that dancing. He …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, May 1, 2012
1922 Comedy team Potash and Perlmutter are Partners Again. The show plays 31 weeks at the Selwyn Theatre.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMMonday, April 30, 2012
1924 Birthday of Sheldon Harnick, who will go on to write lyrics to musicals including Fiorello!, She Loves Me, The Apple Tree and Fiddler on the Roof.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, April 29, 2012
1899 Happy birthday Edward Kennedy Ellington, who, taking the surname "Duke," became one of the 20th century's most important musician-composers. His Broadway shows, Beggar'…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, April 28, 2012
1900 Cho-Cho San and her passionate and tragic love illuminate David Belasco's adaptation of John Luther Long's story, Madame Butterfly. It is oddly paired on a double bill at The Duke of Y…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, April 27, 2012
1903 The Cohan family is Running for Office. Son George M. wrote the book and the music at the 14th Street Theatre. It will run for six weeks.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThursday, April 26, 2012
1926 Sex. It's a comedy. Mae West plays a Canadian woman with no time for those mountees; it's the British navy for her. It runs through one season, but the following it is raided as…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMWednesday, April 25, 2012
1927 When a woman loves sailors so much she follows them all around the world, it's time to Hit the Deck. Vincent Youmans provides the score for Herbert Fields' book adapted from the…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, April 24, 2012
1905 Sir Henry Irving's production of The Merchant of Venice was to have opened the annual Shakespeare Festival at Stratford-upon-Avon. But Irving was taken ill and Frank Benson and his …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMMonday, April 23, 2012
1564 Okay, no one's actually certain that April 23, 1564 was William Shakespeare's birthday, but that's the accepted date. Over the next 52 years, the Bard would pen such works a…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, April 22, 2012
1895 Broadway debut of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, starring Henry Miller as Jack Worthing.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, April 21, 2012
1925 Tallulah Bankhead and Edna Best are Fallen Angels at London's Globe Theatre. Noel Coward's comedy describes two wives who get drunk while trying to get even with their husbands …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, April 20, 2012
1908 The four Cohans are the stars of The Yankee Prince. George M. wrote, directed and co-produced this musical at Broadway's Knickerbocker Theatre. It will run 28 performances.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM 
