Friday, 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 12:00AMThursday, April 19, 2012
1946 Actor Tim Curry is born in Cheshire, England. He will create memorable Broadway roles including Frank N. Furter in The Rocky Horror Show, Mozart in Amadeus, Dada artist Tristan Tzara in…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMWednesday, April 18, 2012
1936 In Irwin Shaw's Bury the Dead the task becomes impossible as the six dead soldiers refuse the grave. This one-act protest against the war will run three months at the Ethel Barrymor…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, April 17, 2012
1917 John Barrymore stars in Gerald DuMaurier's Peter Ibbetson at Broadway's Republic Theatre. Lionel Barrymore, Constance Collier, Madge Evans, and Laura Hope Crews are also in the …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMMonday, April 16, 2012
1906 John Philip Sousa supplies the music for The Free Lance. Herbert Gresham stage this 35 performance run at the New Amsterdam Theatre on Broadway.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, April 15, 2012
1929 In The Camel Through the Needle's Eye, Miriam Hopkins plays a poor woman who discovers the hard way that money can't buy happiness. This drama will run six months.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, April 14, 2012
1865 Our American Cousin starring Laura Keene is in performance tonight when John Wilkes Booth shoots President Abraham Lincoln at the Ford's Theatre in Washington D.C. Booth's broth…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThursday, April 12, 2012
1905 The colossal Hippodrome Theatre opens on Broadway today. The inaugural production is the colorful extravaganza A Yankee Circus on Mars. It will run 176 performances.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMWednesday, April 11, 2012
1914 Mrs. Patrick Campbell and Herbert Beerbohm Tree are the very first Eliza Doolittle and Professor Higgins. George Bernard Shaw's tale of class and character, Pygmalion, wins 118 perf…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, April 10, 2012
1868 Birthday of master actor George Arliss, who starred in a series of historical vehicles, including Hamilton and Disraeli.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMMonday, April 9, 2012
1926 Actor-manager Henry Miller, 66, dies today in New York. He acted opposite many of the leading ladies of the time, including Helena Modjeska. As a leading man with the Empire Stock Compa…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, April 8, 2012
1904 New York City bids adieu to Longacre Square, which had no particular reputation, and says hello to Times Square, which soon develops quite a reputation indeed. Mayor George B. McClellan…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThursday, April 5, 2012
1906 Britain's first actor-M.P., A.E.W. Mason, delivers his first speech. The theatre community sees this as a victory, hoping it will have an advocate in the House of Commons.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMWednesday, April 4, 2012
1921 Sarah Bernhardt, who recently had one leg amputated, comes to London to play the title role in Louis Verneuil's Daniel at the Prince's Theatre. When she found a wooden leg unwie…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, April 3, 2012
1911 Minnie Maddern Fiske stars as Mrs. Bumpstead-Leigh, a woman anxious to conceal her mid-continent past under a veneer of British manners. Harry James Smith's comedy runs at the Lyceu…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, March 4, 2012
1922 Eugene O'Neill's drama The First Man describes the strange tale of a scientist who curses the unborn child in his wife's womb. The wife dies in childbirth and the child thri…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, March 3, 2012
1930 Bert Lahr is a Flying High mechanic who breaks an aeronautical record because he doesn't know how to land the plane. The writing team of DeSylva,Brown and Henderson provide the lyri…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, January 14, 2012
1903 Opening night of The Little Princess, Frances Hodgson Burnett play about a child, much in the same vein as her Secret Garden. Little Princess will run just 34 performances.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, January 13, 2012
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 12:00AMFriday, January 6, 2012
1768 Birthday of John Durang (1768-1816), identified by scholars as one of the first American-born professional dancers and actors. Known for his "Dwarf Dance," "Sailor's …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, January 1, 2012
1900 Chris and the Wonderful Lamp is based on the Arabian Nights and opens at Hammerstein's Victoria Theatre in New York. This musical, with a book by Glen MacDonough and score by John P…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThursday, November 17, 2011
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 07:00PMMonday, November 14, 2011
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 12:00AMSunday, November 13, 2011
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 12:00AMThursday, June 23, 2011
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 Pajama Game, Sweet Charit…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, June 12, 2011
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 12:00AMFriday, June 10, 2011
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 12:00AMThursday, June 9, 2011
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 12:00AMWednesday, June 8, 2011
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 12:00AMTuesday, June 7, 2011
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 12:00AMMonday, June 6, 2011
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 12:00AM 
