Monday, April 6, 2015
1947 The first Tony Awards ceremony is held at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York. Thirteen awards are presented to the likes of Helen Hayes, Ingrid Bergman, Fredric March, Jose Ferre…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, April 5, 2015
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 12:00AMSaturday, April 4, 2015
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 12:12AMFriday, April 3, 2015
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 t…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThursday, April 2, 2015
1923 There's trouble At Mrs. Beam's — this boardinghouse keeper thinks one of her guests is a killer. There will be 280 performances at London's Royalty Theatre of this C. K. M…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMWednesday, April 1, 2015
1918 Actor-manager Henry Miller opens his theatre in New York City. It's designed to seat 1,000 spectators and capable of handling the latest staging innovations. In 1998 the theatre…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, March 31, 2015
1922 Birthday of actor Richard Kiley (1922-1999), who will create memorable roles in mid-20th century musicals, including Kismet, Redhead, No Strings and his signature role, the titl…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMMonday, March 30, 2015
1858 Birthday of DeWolf Hopper (1858-1935), vaudeville comedian and musical comedy star, who was featured in Wang, Hoity-Toity and many early Gilbert & Sullivan productions. …
SOURCE: Playbill at 01:14AMSunday, March 29, 2015
1939 Philip Barry tells The Philadelphia Story at the Shubert Theatre in New York. Katharine Hepburn, Van Heflin, Shirley Booth, and Joseph Cotten star. Robert Edmond Jones designs the sets …
SOURCE: Playbill at 09:24PM1950 Joshua Logan transports the action of Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard to 19th century Louisiana for his adaptation, The Wisteria Trees. It will run 165 performances at the Martin…
SOURCE: Playbill at 09:24PMFriday, March 27, 2015
1924 Long before Madonna sang about Vogueing, there were the Vogues of 1924. This revue at the Shubert Theatre stars Fred Allen and Jimmy Savo. It will run for almost three months.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThursday, March 26, 2015
1905 Actor Maurice Barrymore dies today. He was father to Lionel Barrymore, Ethel Barrymore and John Barrymore. He was 57 years old.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMWednesday, March 25, 2015
1871 Birthday of Lee Shubert, one of the three legendary Shubert brothers who will found the theatre-owning and producing empire, the Shubert Organization.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, March 24, 2015
1909 Irish poet and playwright John Millington Synge dies today. He penned numerous plays including Riders to the Sea and The Playboy of the Western World. For the latter he traveled to the …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMMonday, March 23, 2015
1940 It's Separate Rooms for an actress who'd rather sleep with her pet Chihuahua than her playwright husband. Glenda Farrell and Lyle Talbot are the twosome. This comedy by Alan Din…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, March 22, 2015
1912 Karl Malden is born in Chicago, Illinois today. He will appear in numerous Broadway productions, most memorably as Mitch in the original A Streetcar Named Desire.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, March 21, 2015
1867 Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr. is born today in Chicago, Illinois. He will go on to become one of the most powerful showmen ever. His Follies, filled with beautiful women and exciting variety ac…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, March 20, 2015
1828 Birth of Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906), who will revolutionize world theatre with his realistic dramas A Doll's House, Hedda Gabler, Ghosts, Rosmersholm and Peer…
SOURCE: Playbill at 01:00AMThursday, March 19, 2015
1872 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 12:00AMWednesday, March 18, 2015
1927 Birthday of composer John Kander, who will compose scores for Broadway's Cabaret, Chicago, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Woman of the Year, Zorba and other musicals.
SOURCE: Playbill at 01:00AMMonday, March 16, 2015
1924 Doris Keane and Jacob Ben-Ami are Welded. Eugene O'Neill's drama outlines a marriage that is stronger than the couple realizes. It lasts three weeks at the 39th Street Thea…
SOURCE: Playbill at 11:35PM1914 Female impersonator Julian Eltinge is lyricist and star of The Crinoline Girl. Otto Hauerbach provides the book and Percy Wenrich the score. S/he'll twirl at the Knickerbocker Theat…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, March 15, 2015
1926 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 12:00AMSaturday, March 14, 2015
1911 Constance Collier, Tyrone Power (father of the future film star), and Sydney Greenstreet are in the cast of Thais. Paul Wilstach bases his play on the Anatole France story.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, March 13, 2015
1928 It's one for all, and all for almost 10 months of The Three Musketeers. William Anthony McGuire stages his book based on the Alexandre Dumas novel. P.G. Wodehouse and Clifford Grey …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThursday, March 12, 2015
1928 Birthday of playwright Edward Albee, who will go on to write Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Goat, Or Who Is Sylvia? and Pulitzer-winners, A Delicate Balance, Seascape and…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMWednesday, March 11, 2015
1930 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 12:00AMMonday, March 9, 2015
1856 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…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, March 8, 2015
1920 Ziegfeld Girls of 1920 enjoys a 78-performance run at the New Amsterdam Roof Theatre. This revue boasts the talents of Fanny Brice, W.C. Fields, and Eddie Cantor.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThursday, March 5, 2015
1908 Actor Rex Harrison is born today. He will make his London debut in Florence Kilpatrick's Getting George Married. He will star in the London production of Noël Coward's Design f…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMWednesday, March 4, 2015
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 thr…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:33AM 
