Monday, 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 12:00AMSunday, June 5, 2011
1922 Future stage and screen star Judy Holliday is born today. By the time of her untimely death in 1966 Holliday will have won the 1951 Academy Award for best actress for her performance in…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, June 4, 2011
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 12:00AMFriday, June 3, 2011
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 12:00AMThursday, June 2, 2011
1954 Rodgers and Hammerstein'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 12:00AMWednesday, June 1, 2011
1914 The Ziegfeld Follies of 1914 stars Ed Wynn. Leon Errol dances and co-directs with Ziegfeld. There will be 112 performances at the New Amsterdam Theatre in New York.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, May 29, 2011
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 12:00AMSaturday, May 28, 2011
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 12:00AMFriday, May 27, 2011
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 12:00AMThursday, May 26, 2011
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 12:00AMWednesday, May 25, 2011
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 12:00AMTuesday, May 24, 2011
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 12:00AMMonday, May 23, 2011
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 12:00AMSunday, May 22, 2011
1907 Birthday of Laurence Olivier (1907-1989), preeminent British actor of his generation. His dozens of notable appearances included Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, The Entertainer, …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, May 21, 2011
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 12:00AMFriday, May 20, 2011
1919 Guy Bolton and P.G. Wodehouse call this Kissing Time at the Winter Garden on Broadway. Ivan Caryll provides the music for this tale of complications arising when French ladies carry on …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThursday, May 19, 2011
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 12:00AMWednesday, May 18, 2011
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 12:00AMMonday, May 16, 2011
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 12:00AMSunday, May 15, 2011
1922 Father and son playwriting team J.C. and Elliot Nugent come up with Kempy. They also star in this comedy of mixed-up lovers, staged by Augustin Duncan. Performances will run at Broadway…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, May 14, 2011
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 12:00AMFriday, May 13, 2011
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 12:00AMThursday, May 12, 2011
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 12:00AMWednesday, May 11, 2011
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 12:00AMTuesday, May 10, 2011
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 12:00AMMonday, May 9, 2011
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 12:00AMSunday, May 8, 2011
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 12:00AMSaturday, May 7, 2011
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 12:00AMFriday, May 6, 2011
1912 Richard Le Gallienne's Orestes stars Edyth Olive and Rathmel Wilson. It plays at London's Boudoir Theatre.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThursday, May 5, 2011
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 12:00AMWednesday, May 4, 2011
1859 Birthday of A.L. "Abe" 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 centur…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM 
