1982 Little Shop of Horrors begins a 2,209-performance run today at Off-Broadway's Orpheum Theatre. Based on the Roger Corman cult classic about a man-eating plant, this Alan…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1856 A Dramatic genius is born today in the person of George Bernard Shaw. Among Shaw's many playwriting credits will be Pygmalion, Man and Superman and Saint Joan. The former play, a co…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1920 Producer Alexander H. Cohen, known for bringing quality plays to Broadway for six decades, is born today. Lastly represented on Broadway by the Noel Coward play, Waiting in the Wings, s…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1938 Helen Hayes is named the stage's greatest performer when the New York Sun prints its list of great performers today. Compiled after polling 150 notable people, mostly in the theatre…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1912 The Shubert Brothers present the first of their annual Passing Show installments tonight. The Passing Show of 1912 features Charlotte Greenwood, Trixie Friganza, and Eugene and Willie H…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1951 Birthday of actress Lillias White, whose Broadway appearances include Effie White in Dreamgirls, Miss Jones in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying and Funmilayo Anikulapo&#…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:10AM1961 Stop The World - I Want To Get Off opens tonight at the Queen's Theatre on London's West End. The musical, which follows the life of one man from birth to death, will run 4…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1938 Stage and film actor Burgess Meredith divorces Margaret Perry today. Perry, an actress, is the daughter of Antoinette Perry, after whom the Tony Awards are named. The union was rather s…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1928 Following the birth of "talkie" films, Variety prints an article focusing on the amount of legit theatre talent that is being sought for this new medium. Among those stage act…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1953 Actress Maude Adams dies today. Born in 1873, Adams, at the age of 32, played the title role in James M. Barrie's Peter Pan when it had its American premiere at the Empire Theatre i…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1924 Broadway premiere of George Dibdin-Pitt's Sweeney Todd, one of numerous adaptations of the penny-dreadful tale of murder and cannibalism that would later be adapted as a mus…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1918 Birthday of playwright Arthur Laurents, who will write numerous plays including The Time of the Cuckoo and Invitation to a March, but who is best known as librettist for musical classic…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1940 Actor Patrick Stewart is born today. A Shakespearean-trained actor, Stewart's Broadway appearances will include a solo production of A Christmas Carol, William Shakespeare&a…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:22AM1895 Birthday of Oscar Hammerstein II, scion of a notable theatrical family who went on to become its most famous and honored member as a lyricist and librettist. Hammerstein enjoyed a major…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1915 A King is born today... in the form of Yul Brynner. Brynner will, of course, go on to star as one half of the title of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, The King And I, opposite Gert…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1931 "It's Today" — that Jerry Herman is born. Herman will become one of Broadway's great musical theatre composers. Among his esteemed credits are the hits Hello, Dolly!…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1930 In today's Variety, a review of a new vaudeville show at the Eighty Sixth Street Theatre singles out a newcomer from the world of cabaret. Reads the review: "She is a good look…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1976 After two years of playing downtown at the Village Gate Theatre, Earl Wilson, Jr.'s play Let My People Come makes the move uptown to Broadway's Morosco Theatre. The show, which …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1939 A young Hollywood hopeful is forced to watch her own career fizzle as her boyfriend's blossoms in Lew Brown's new musical, Yokel Boy. Lois January and Buddy Ebsen star in the ne…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1935 President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the American National Theatre and Academy bill today, calling for a self-supporting national theatre. ANTA will get off to a slow start but wil…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1898 Birthday of actress Gertrude Lawrence (1898-1952), longtime acting partner of Noël Coward (Private Lives, Tonight at 8:30) and star of musicals by the Gershwin brothers (Oh, Kay!, …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1878 The original Yankee Doodle Dandy, George M. Cohan (1878-1942) is born on the 3rd of July, (not the 4th as was family legend) says. A member of the vaudeville team The Four Cohans wi…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1900 Birthday of director/producer/writer Tyrone Guthrie (1900-1971) who will stage Broadway productions of The Tenth Man, Tamburlaine the Great and the Leonard Bernstein musical Candide.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1930 Comedian Jack Benny makes his Broadway debut in Earl Carroll's Vanities of 1930. The revue also featured Patsy Kelly, Jimmy Savo and the Collette Sisters.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1924 Opening night of George White's Scandals of 1924, which features a score by George Gershwin, including "Somebody Loves Me." It will run 192 performances at the Apollo The…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1954 A star is born as Carol Haney's understudy in The Pajama Game goes on in place of the ailing actress and is discovered by theatre critic George Freedly. Writes Freedly in his review…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1902 Birthday of Richard Rodgers (1902-1979), one of the most prolific and successful Broadway composers. His greatest successes came in partnership with lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II (O…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1888 Birthday of Antoinette Perry (1888-1946), an actress and groundbreaking woman stage director who will help found the American Theatre Wing. In gratitude, the Wing will name its annu…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1890 (probably) Actress Jeanne Eagels, best known for playing Miss Thompson in Rain, is born today.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1887 Birthday of legendary director George Abbott (1887-1995) whose long life (107 years) and colossal catalog (more than 110 Broadway shows, sometimes also as producer, writer or even a…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1942 Gypsy Rose Lee and Bobby Clark are featured in Michael Todd's musical revue, Star and Garter, which opens a 609-performance run at the Music Box Theatre.
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