Sunday, January 6, 2013
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 12:00AMSaturday, January 5, 2013
1894 U.S. premiere of Henrik Ibsen's Ghosts, starring Ida Jeffries Goodfriend, at the Berkeley Lyceum Theatre.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, January 4, 2013
1905 Quivery-voiced actor Sterling Holloway (1905-1992) is born today in Cedartown, GA. He will become a fixture of Broadway's The Garrick Gaieties revues of the 1920s and '30s, and …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThursday, January 3, 2013
1909 Birthday of Victor Borge (1909-2000), pianist and comedian whose 1953 Comedy in Music ran 888 performances, the longest run ever for a solo musical on Broadway. He followed it with Come…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, January 1, 2013
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 12:00AMMonday, December 31, 2012
1879 World premiere of W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York, with Alice Barnett as Ruth.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, December 30, 2012
1907 In The Comet Alla Nazimova plays a woman who falls in love with her former lover's son, who eventually kills himself. This first play for Owen Johnson will run for seven weeks.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, December 29, 2012
1919 The Lafayette Players of New York, a black troupe, opens the newest theatre in Philadelphia, the Dunbar, with a production of Within the Law. The house, named for poet Paul Lawrence Dun…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, December 28, 2012
1925 Queenie Smith is featured in Tip-Toes, the George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin musical about a vaudeville trio stranded in Florida. It introduces the song "Sweet and Low Down, and run…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThursday, December 27, 2012
1920 Brock Pemberton's Miss Lulu Bett opens today at the Belmont Theatre. It will run 198 performances and win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMWednesday, December 26, 2012
1904 Maude Adams returns to Broadway with a revival of J.M. Barrie's The Little Minister. It opens tonight and runs just 73 performances. A year later she'll be back with a better Ba…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, December 25, 2012
1865 Birthday of Fay Templeton (1865-1939), durable musical comedy actress from the 1870s to the 1930s. Her appearances include Roberta, Forty-Five Minutes From Broadway and Fiddle-dee-dee.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMMonday, December 24, 2012
1904 Lillian Russell, a.k.a Diamond Lil, stars in Lady Teazle, a musical based on The School for Scandal. John Kendrick Bangs and Roderic C. Penfield provide the music to a score by A. Baldw…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, December 23, 2012
1893 Birthday of dancer Ann Pennington (1893-1971), who would display her fabled dimpled knee in many editions of The Ziegfeld Follies and George White's Scandals from 1913 to 1928.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, December 22, 2012
1639 Jean Racine (1639-1699) is born today in France. He will go on to write classics Phedre and Bérénice.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, December 21, 2012
1889 Beatrice Cameron stars as Nora Helmer in the U.S. premiere of Henrik Ibsen's groundbreaking drama, A Doll's House at Palmer's Theatre.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThursday, December 20, 2012
1912 Laurette Taylor stars in Peg O' My Heart, written and directed by her husband, J. Hartley Manners. This story of a winsome orphan becomes a vehicle for Taylor, and she will revive it of…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMWednesday, December 19, 2012
1865 Birthday of Mary Augusta Davey, who acted under the names Minnie Maddern, Minnie Maddern Fiske and Mrs. Fiske (1865-1932). Performer, director and producer of many dramas before and aft…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, December 18, 2012
1907 Playwright Christopher Fry (1907-2005), author of Ring Round the Moon and The Lady's Not for Burning, is born, with the additional surname of Harris, in Bristol, England.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMMonday, December 17, 2012
1906 Opening night for Lew Dockstader's Minstrels, the final Broadway appearance for one of the last of the great minstrel shows. It runs 26 performances at The New York Theatre.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, December 16, 2012
1899 Noel Coward is born today. He authored plays such as Hay Fever, Design for Living and Private Lives, many of which he performed in; scripts for the films "Brief Encounter" and…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, December 15, 2012
1919 Frank McGlyn is Abraham Lincoln in John Drinkwater's drama. The story follows Lincoln's life from 1860 to his assassination in 1865. There will be 193 performances at the Cort T…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, December 14, 2012
1885 Birthday of Brock Pemberton (1885-1950), producer of many Broadway plays and comedies during a 30-year career, including the original Harvey, Miss Lulu Bett, Six Characters in Search of…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThursday, December 13, 2012
1925 Birthday in West Plains, MO, of actor Dick Van Dyke, who will appear on Broadway in Bye Bye Birdie and The Girls Against the Boys, and create memorable TV and film roles in "The Di…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMWednesday, December 12, 2012
1902 There will be two debuts in Everyman. Edith Wynne Matthison makes her American debut, and Charles Rann Kennedy makes his stage debut.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, December 11, 2012
1893 Oscar Wilde gets his second Broadway production in a year with the U.S. premiere of his play A Woman of No Importance at Miner's Fifth Avenue Theatre.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMMonday, December 10, 2012
1901 Sadie Martinot, Guy Bates Post, and Junius Brutus Booth play The Marriage Game. This drama, adapted by Clyde Fitch from Emile Augier's Le Marriage d'Olympe, highlights what ruin…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, December 9, 2012
1902 Birthday of actress Margaret Hamilton, who will appear on Broadway in plays including The Farmer Takes a Wife, The Dark Tower, Goldilocks and a revival of Our Town, but who will forever…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, December 8, 2012
1903 Mam'selle Napoleon is Anna Held in this musical at the Knickerbocker Theatre. Produced by Held's husband Florenz Ziegfeld, with a score by Gustav Luders, this show will have a 4…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, December 7, 2012
1879 Composer Rudolf Friml (1879-1972) is born in Prague. He will emigrate to the U.S. and become one of the top Broadway operetta composers of the 1910s and 1920s. His works will include Th…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThursday, December 6, 2012
1896 Birthday of Ira Gershwin (1896-1983), one of Broadway's most sterling lyricists, mainly in collaboration with his brother George Gershwin. Ira's musicals will include Porgy and …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM 
