Monday, June 15, 2015
1894 Birthday of Robert Russell Bennett (1894-1981), orchestrator of Broadway classics including the original Sunny; Show Boat; Anything Goes; Oklahoma!; Annie Get Your Gun; Kiss Me, Kat…
SOURCE: Playbill at 01:00AMSunday, June 14, 2015
1929 Birthday of Broadway composer Cy Coleman, (1929-2004) whose multidextrous scores for shows like Sweet Charity, I Love My Wife, On the Twentieth Century, The Will Rogers Follies, The…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, June 13, 2015
1963 Stage actor Howard Da Silva finds himself at the other end of the spectrum: as director of a Lewis John Carlino double bill. Shelley Winters and Jack Warden star in the two one acts, Sn…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, June 12, 2015
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 12:00AMThursday, June 11, 2015
1955 The American actor-manager Walter Hampden dies in Hollywood at age 75. In 1925 he leased the Colonial Theatre and played in revivals of Ibsen and Shakespeare. Cyrano de Bergerac was…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:19AMSunday, June 7, 2015
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 …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, June 6, 2015
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 12:00AMFriday, June 5, 2015
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. Bo…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThursday, June 4, 2015
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 12:00AMWednesday, June 3, 2015
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, na…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, June 2, 2015
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 12:00AMMonday, June 1, 2015
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 01:00AMSunday, May 31, 2015
1946 Orson Welles circumnavigated the stage in Around The World, a musical he adapted from the Jules Verne novel, “Around the World in Eighty Days,” Cole Porter provided …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, May 30, 2015
1868 Birthday of producer/director/manager Charles Dillingham (1868-1934), whose productions included As Good as New, The Last of Mrs. Cheyney, Sunny, Bulldog Drummond, The Red Mill and …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, May 29, 2015
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 12:00AMWednesday, May 27, 2015
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 …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMMonday, May 25, 2015
New York Times writers review five shows that made their debuts in the early days of this year’s New York International Fringe Festival.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 05:58PMWhy two deaths in less than a week -- Richard Holbrooke's and Mark Madoff's -- remind us of classical Greece.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 05:58PM1908 J. Lucifer Mephisto tempts a sculptor to be unfaithful in The Soul Kiss. Produced by Florenz Ziegfeld, this musical comedy stars Ralph Herz, Adeline Genee, and Cecil Lean. Harry B. Smit…
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM1900 A week-long engagement at Dublin's Gaiety Theatre by the Irish Literary Theatre does not cause much of a stir. The company stages The Bending of the Bough by George Moore, Maeve by Edwa…
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM1922 Arthur Wing Pinero's The Enchanted Cottage constructs the story of a couple who find themselves transformed by their love for one another. Owen Nares and Laura Cowie are the lucky pair.…
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM1873 Birthday of singer/actress Anna Held, future wife of Florenz Ziegfeld, and the classic sexy French flirt of her era. She will play this role in a series of musical vehicles including La…
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM1856 Comedian Eddie Foy is born today. He'll star in vaudeville and on Broadway, notably in Mr. Hamlet of Broadway, The Earl and the Girl and Piff! Paff!! Pouf!!!. His son, Eddie Foy Jr., wi…
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM1911 Constance Collier, Tyrone Power (father of the future film star), and Sidney Greenstreet are in the cast of Thais. Paul Wilstach bases his play on the Anatole France story.
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM1926 Sean O'Casey's Juno and the Paycock has its U.S. premiere at Broadway's Mayfair Theatre. It runs 74 performances.
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM1848 English actress Ellen Terry is born today. She will make her American debut in 1883 with Henry Irving's company. She will go on to star in classic and contemporary works. The Terry fami…
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM1894 Birthday of playwright Ben Hecht (1894-1964) , author or co-author of The Front Page, Twentieth Century, Jumbo, The Egoist and The Great Magoo.
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM1930 Edward Franklin Albee, vaudeville producer and theatre owner, dies today in Palm Beach, Florida. He joined B.F. Keith in the presentation of variety shows and by 1920 had a vaudeville c…
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM1900 The scandalous Sapho [sic] is staged at Wallack's Theatre in New York. Based on Alphonse Daudet's novel, it stars Olga Nethersole as an evil woman who seduces a pure young man to keep a…
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM1946 Mary Martin and Yul Brynner play a Chinese couple who separate when the husband goes off on a quest in Lute Song. Raymond Scott composed the score, and Sidney Howard and Will Irwin wrot…
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM1912 Stop in at the Liberty Theatre in New York and see just what it takes when you're Elevating a Husband. Edward Everett Horton, Conway Tearle and Jessie Carter are among the cast of this …
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM 
