Monday, September 8, 2014
1914 A farce about selling soap called It Pays to Advertise, by Roi Cooper Megrue and Walter Hackett, opens at the Cohan Theatre. It stars Grant Mitchell and Ruth Shepley.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, September 7, 2014
1909 Director Elia Kazan is born. Kazan would go on to direct the award-winning plays Death of a Salesman and A Streetcar Named Desire. His success reached to the silver screen as well. …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, September 6, 2014
1919 The Actors' Equity strike is settled at 3 AM, and some shows reopen today.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, September 5, 2014
1881 Birthday of B. Iden Payne (1881-1976) a producer and playwright, who, as a professor at the University of Texas, inspired three generations of Broadway artists, including Tommy Tune…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThursday, September 4, 2014
1895 Actor E. H. Sothern scores a personal triumph in the adventure melodrama The Prisoner of Zenda.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMWednesday, June 25, 2014
The unusually eventful post-season at the Metropolitan Opera continued on Wednesday morning when some administrative offices inside the opera house were vandalized with spray paint, the poli…
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 01:48PMMonday, June 9, 2014
Another year, another Tony Awards telecast. In general, the gold went to the most deserving of the season: Few would carp about Bryan Cranston or Neil Patrick Harris nabbing top honors, and …
SOURCE: Time Out at 07:26PMSaturday, April 5, 2014
San Diego Opera's leaders acknowledge a 'tough' road to keep the company open as calls for new leadership grow after abrupt closure vote.There's nothing opera buffs like better than a climac…
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 09:00AMFriday, March 21, 2014
Luck? Coincidence? Good sight lines? Short ladies' room lines? Outsized orchestra sections that can be sold at a premium price?
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:42PMThursday, January 30, 2014
1911 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 T…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, January 28, 2014
1908 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 12:00AMSaturday, January 25, 2014
1915 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 Ca…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMWednesday, January 22, 2014
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 t…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, January 21, 2014
1903 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 12:00AMSaturday, January 18, 2014
1882 Birthday of A. A. Milne (1882-1956), best-known as creator of the Winnie-the-Pooh books, but also a prolific Broadway playwright, author of Mr. Pim Passes By, The Truth About Blayds, Be…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, January 17, 2014
1911 Love is never easy, especially when a woman is the object of affection for The Scarecrow. Percy MacKaye used "Feathertop," Nathaniel Hawthorne's tale as a starting point f…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, January 14, 2014
1903 Opening night of The Little Princess, Frances Hodgson Burnett play about a child, much in the same vein as her The Secret Garden. Little Princess will run just 34 performances.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMMonday, January 13, 2014
1925 Birthday of one of Broadway's all-time greatest leading ladies, Gwen Verdon (1925-2000). She was nominated for the Tony Award as Best Actress or Featured Actress in a Musical six ti…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, January 12, 2014
1878 Hungarian playwright Ferenc Molnár (1878-1952) is born today in Budapest. He will write The Good Fairy, The Play's the Thing, The Guardsman, The Swan and Liliom, the latter of which wi…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThursday, January 2, 2014
1910 American actress Agnes Booth dies today at age of 63. She was the wife of Junius Brutus Booth, Jr. and the sister-in-law of Edwin Booth.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThursday, December 19, 2013
Lori Wolter Hudson remembers having a nervous breakdown in middle school in Indiana when her teacher assigned her to recite … Read More →
SOURCE: nytheatremag.com at 04:14PMMonday, December 16, 2013
From the best new Broadway shows to groundbreaking downtown experiments, it was a very good year for New York theater.
SOURCE: Time Out at 12:49PMFriday, December 6, 2013
Days are growing shorter, the nights are getting colder…how to keep our spirits up during the winter months? That’s easy: Go see a show. Between now and the onset of spring, theater is a…
SOURCE: Time Out at 04:39PMWednesday, December 4, 2013
1860 Birthday of Lillian Russell (1860-1922), who became the epitome of Gilded Age female sex appeal and stage presence starting in vaudeville at Tony Pastor's Theatre and graduating to …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, November 30, 2013
1924 Henry Oscar and Esme Biddle are the leads of Byron by Alice Law, at the Century Theatre in Bayswater, England. In a very small role is someone named Laurence Olivier.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:01AMFriday, November 29, 2013
1895 Birthday of legendary film choreographer Busby Berkeley (1895-1976), whose career will be launched with a 12-show burst of creativity on Broadway between the end of 1926 and the beginni…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMMonday, November 11, 2013
1872 Birthday of Maude Adams (1872-1953), Broadway's first Peter Pan, who originated the role in 1904, and returned at least three times through 1915.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, November 10, 2013
1900 Opening night of legendary musical Floradora at the Casino Theatre for a 553-performance run the first major hit of the 20th century. The production is remembered principally for the…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, November 8, 2013
1913 Birthday of June Hovik, better known as June Havoc, even better known as namesake of Baby June, the character based on her in the musical Gypsy. The show pretty accurately sums up her c…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, November 5, 2013
1895 Birthday of Charles MacArthur (1895-1956), newsman-turned-playwright, whose wisecracking oeuvre includes The Front Page, Twentieth Century (the play on which the musical On the Twentiet…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMMonday, November 4, 2013
1787 Birthday of British actor Edmund Kean (1787-1833), considered one of the finest actors of the early 18th century. Among his greatest roles was Shakespeare's Richard III. He will be …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM 
