Tuesday, October 14, 2014
1893 Lillian Gish, film acting pioneer whose Broadway career lasted from 1913 to 1976, is born today. Her stage shows will include Camille, The Trip to Bountiful and several versions of Uncl…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMMonday, October 13, 2014
1903 Victor Herbert's Babes in Toyland opens on Broadway, introducing the songs "I Can't Do the Sum," "Go To Sleep," "Toyland" and "The March of th…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, October 12, 2014
1914 Broadway premiere of George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, with Mrs. Patrick Campbell as Eliza Doolittle. The drama will serve as the basis of the 1956 musical My Fair Lady.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:09AMSaturday, October 11, 2014
1918 Jerome Robbins born today. The choreographer spent most of his early career moving easily between the worlds of classical ballet and Broadway, choreographing and/or directing classics i…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, October 10, 2014
1730 Birthday of Oliver Goldsmith, British author of She Stoops to Conquer.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThursday, October 9, 2014
1893 Arthur Wing Pinero courts scandal with his play The Second Mrs. Tanqueray, about a man who brings misery to all with a second marriage. Mrs. Patrick Campbell plays the title character a…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMWednesday, October 8, 2014
1857 Birth of Edward Franklin Albee, who, with B.F. Keith, controlled one of the biggest circuits in vaudeville in the early 20th century. Also, grandfather and namesake of Pulitzer-winn…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, October 7, 2014
1907 The Gay White Way, a musical revue whose title meant something quite different in that innocent era, opens at the Casino Theatre for a then-healthy run of 105 performances. Blanche …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMMonday, October 6, 2014
All data provided by The Broadway League
View Broadway Grosses in a sortable table or view by show at the Playbill Vault
SOURCE: Playbill at 03:11PM1919 Hitchy-Koo 1919 proves to be a minor success for star Raymond Hitchcock, but it produces the first song hit, "Old Fashioned Garden," for its 28-year-old composer, …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, October 5, 2014
1896 Broadway premiere of Secret Service, which becomes a perennial touring hit for its author and star, William Gillette.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, October 4, 2014
1880 Writer Damon Runyon, whose short story "The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown" will go on to form the basis for the musical Guys and Dolls, is born today.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, October 3, 2014
1859 Eleanora Duse born in Italy. One of the leading actresses of her day, "The Great Duse" will champion the realistic playwrights of the early 20th century, and will have some of…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThursday, October 2, 2014
1890 Julius Henry Marx is born in New York. Under the nickname "Groucho," he and his brothers form one of the most enduring comedy acts ever, The Marx Brothers, rising from Vaudevi…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMWednesday, October 1, 2014
1928 Mae West's controversial play Pleasure Man opens at the Biltmore Theatre. It's the story of an actor who has impregnated so many women that the brother of one of them takes up a…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, September 30, 2014
1915 The huge Hippodrome Theatre opens one of its most successful extravaganzas, Hip! Hip! Hooray!. Described by the New York Times as "a gargantuan spectacle, smarter and more sumptuou…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:16AMMonday, September 29, 2014
All data provided by The Broadway League
View Broadway Grosses in a sortable table or view by show at the Playbill Vault
SOURCE: Playbill at 03:49PMSunday, September 28, 2014
1892 Birthday of playwright Elmer Rice (1892 -1967), author of many dramas including Street Scene, Counsellor-at-Law, Dream Girl, The Grand Tour and the libretto to Kurt Weill…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, September 27, 2014
1898 Birthday of Vincent Youmans (1898-1946), one of the iconic Broadway composers of the 1920s, whose career will go into a nosedive after that bubbly decade ends. His scores will inclu…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, September 26, 2014
1898 Composer George Gershwin is born in New York. He'll go on to write Porgy and Bess, "Rhapsody in Blue," Girl Crazy and the Pulitzer Prize-winning musical, Of Thee I Sin…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThursday, September 25, 2014
1928 Chee-Chee, Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart's musical about castration in ancient China, opens to searing reviews and goes on to close after just 31 performances, the team's …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMWednesday, September 24, 2014
1902 Cheryl Crawford (1902-1986), one of the most powerful and influential women in Broadway history, is born today. As producer and/or director, she will have a decisive hand in product…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMMonday, September 22, 2014
1921 The Music Box Revue of 1921 is the premiere performance at the new Music Box Theatre, which opened on 45th Street today. This is the first edition of the Revue, itself the first to exhi…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, September 21, 2014
1896 This day marks Florenz Ziegfeld's debut as a Broadway producer. The Parlor March opens at the Herald Square Theatre, starring Anna Held (his mistress and later wife). Ziegfeld's…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, September 20, 2014
1886 Birthday of writer/director John Murray Anderson (1886-1954), whose work for revues Ziegfeld Follies, Greenwich Village Follies and John Murray Anderson's Almanac helped launch…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, September 19, 2014
1904 Julian Eltinge, the famed female impersonator, makes his Broadway debut today in Mr. Wix of Wickham, the unsuccessful musical at the Bijou Theatre. The now legendary Jerome Kern, who wa…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThursday, September 18, 2014
1911 Disraeli, a new drama, opens tonight on Broadway at the Wallack's Theatre. It stars George Arliss as the British prime minister in this play by Louis N. Parker. Arliss' memorabl…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMWednesday, September 17, 2014
1879 The Daly Theatre opens at Broadway and Thirtieth Street in New York.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMMonday, September 15, 2014
1889 Robert Benchley, the acclaimed actor, critic, and humorist of the early Twentieth Century, is born today. Benchley will marry Gertrude Darling and make his stage debut in this month in …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, September 14, 2014
1910 Birthday of Lehman Engel (1910-1982), the Tony-winning Broadway conductor who will found the BMI Musical Theatre Workshop. Among the shows he will conduct are original productio…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, September 13, 2014
1894 Birthday of British playwright J.B. Priestley (1894-1984), author of plays An Inspector Calls, When We Are Married, Laburnum Grove and A Severed Head.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM 
