Monday, May 25, 2015
1912 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 05:58PM1903 Dorothy, The Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion are first seen on Broadway today in the original musical The Wizard of Oz, with music by Paul Tietjens and book and lyrics by L…
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM1915 It'll be 90 in the Shade for only 40 performances. The unpaid actors will refuse to go on in this musical with a Jerome Kern score and book by Guy Bolton. Richard Carle and Marie Cahill…
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM1911 Hugh Herbert Hipple is born today in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. After dropping two H's, he will become suave actor Hugh Marlowe. In 1940 he will appear in Elmer Rice's Flight To the We…
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM1882 Birthday of John Barrymore (1882-1942), actor in the grand style, and scion of the Barrymore acting clan. Though he began as a light comedian, he became identified with the classics, no…
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM1893 Birthday of playwright and producer Russel Crouse (1893-1966), whose prodigious output of scripts, many in partnership with Howard Lindsay, includes State of the Union and The Great Seb…
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM1879 John Wellington Wells deals his magic and spells for the first time on Broadway with the American premiere of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Sorcerer at the old Broadway Theatre.
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM1933 Maxwell Anderson indicts Both Your Houses, a political story at the Royale Theatre. Morris Carnovsky is in the cast of this Theatre Guild production. It will go on to win the Pulitzer P…
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PMElizabeth Ashley is one of 20 actors saluted by Back Stage critics David Sheward and Erik Haagensen for delivering memorable performances on New York stages in 2010.
SOURCE: Backstage at 05:58PMSunday, May 24, 2015
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 12:00AMFriday, May 22, 2015
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 L…
SOURCE: Playbill at 10:57PMThursday, May 21, 2015
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 12:00AMWednesday, May 20, 2015
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 12:00AMMonday, May 18, 2015
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 as his mistress Nell Gwynne. Lynn Fontanne and…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, May 17, 2015
1907 The new Hippodrome Theatre opens in Portsmouth, England.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, May 15, 2015
1922 Father and son playwriting team J. C. Nugent and Elliott Nugent come up with Kempy. They also star in this comedy of mixed-up lovers, staged by Augustin Duncan. Performances will ru…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThursday, May 14, 2015
From Broadway’s best new musicals to global festivals, the city’s stages keep hot during the summer months
SOURCE: Time Out at 11:11PM1931 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 12:00AMWednesday, May 13, 2015
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 12:00AMTuesday, May 12, 2015
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 12:00AMMonday, May 11, 2015
What, if anything, do the Tony Awards tell us about the state of American theatre? Is Broadway still where the important plays and musicals are staged? On this week’s Out Loud podcast, we…
SOURCE: The New Yorker Subscription at 06:18PM1903 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 12:00AMSunday, May 10, 2015
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…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, May 9, 2015
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 …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, May 8, 2015
With interactive shows continuing to draw in crowds, we rank the most popular Off Broadway events from best to worst
SOURCE: Time Out at 09:20PM1892 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 12:00AMThursday, May 7, 2015
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 th…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMWednesday, May 6, 2015
1912 Richard Le Gallienne's Orestes stars Edyth Olive and Rathmel Wilson. It plays at London's Boudoir Theatre.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, May 5, 2015
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 Ge…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMMonday, May 4, 2015
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…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, May 3, 2015
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 12:00AM 
