Thursday, September 27, 2012
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 include N…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMWednesday, September 26, 2012
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 Sing, a…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, September 25, 2012
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 shor…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMMonday, September 24, 2012
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 productions…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, September 23, 2012
1912 Another upbeat musical hit for George M. Cohan and his family: Broadway Jones which opens a 176-performance run today at Cohan's eponymous theatre.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, September 22, 2012
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 12:00AMFriday, September 21, 2012
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 12:00AMWednesday, September 19, 2012
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 12:00AMTuesday, September 18, 2012
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 12:00AMMonday, September 17, 2012
1879 The Daly Theatre opens at Broadway and Thirtieth Street in New York.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, September 16, 2012
1892 Songwriter and producer Earl Carroll (1892-1948) is born today. His best-remembered contribution to the theatre was the eponymous revue The Earl Carroll Vanities, which had nine edition…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, September 15, 2012
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 12:00AMFriday, September 14, 2012
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 productions of Wo…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThursday, September 13, 2012
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 12:00AMWednesday, September 12, 2012
1866 The Broadway musical is born. The Black Crook opens at Niblo's Garden, a musical extravaganza featuring a melodramatic plot and scantily-dressed ballerinas who serve as chorus girls…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, September 11, 2012
1912 Jane Cowl becomes a star while performing in Within the Law by Bayard Veiller, which opened on this night. The play is about a woman wrongfully accused of theft. This was also the prem…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMMonday, September 10, 2012
1915 Fanny Brice is reviewed in Variety for her performance at the Palace. Variety says that when she "learns to refrain from starting to disrobe before she is out of sight of the audie…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, September 9, 2012
1873 Birthday of influential director Max Reinhardt (1873-1943) in Austria-Hungary. He will stage innovative productions of The Eternal Road, Sumurun and A Midsummer Night's Dream, the l…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, September 8, 2012
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 12:00AMFriday, September 7, 2012
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. He w…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThursday, September 6, 2012
1919 The Actors' Equity strike is settled at 3 AM, and some shows reopen today.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, September 2, 2012
1918 A stage adaptation of Booth Tarkington's popular Penrod stories proves a bust. It opens today and runs just 48 performances.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, September 1, 2012
1898 Birthday of one of Broadway's most endearing leading ladies of the 1920s, Marilyn Miller (1898-1936), whose vehicles will include Sally, Sunny, Rosalie and As Thousands Cheer.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, August 31, 2012
1897 John Drew and Billie Burke (in her Broadway debut) are the stars of the new play, My Wife, opening tonight at the Empire Theatre. There will be 129 performances.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThursday, August 30, 2012
1898 Birthday of actress Shirley Booth (1898-1992), who will appear in more than 30 Broadway plays in between film and TV stints. Her major stage roles include A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, The …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMWednesday, August 29, 2012
1899 The Girl From Maxime's one of Georges Feydeau's most sparkling farces, has its U.S. premiere at the Criterion Theatre.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, August 28, 2012
1917 Jerome Kern, Guy Bolton and P.G. Wodehouse open their romantic musical-comedy Leave It To Jane tonight at the Longacre Theatre. The score includes "Just You Watch My Step," &q…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMMonday, August 27, 2012
1878 Birthday of Sam S. Shubert (1878-1905), co-founder of the theatre-owning and producing titan, the Shubert Organization. Broadway's Shubert Theatre is named for him.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, August 26, 2012
1880 Broadway director-producer Philip Moeller is born today in New York. Among his greatest theatrical achievements are productions of Biography, Elizabeth the Queen, Mourning Becomes Elect…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, August 25, 2012
1918 Birthday of composer Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990), who will bridge the worlds of classical and Broadway, both as conductor for the New York Philharmonic and as composer of classic scor…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, August 24, 2012
1985 Morrie Ryskind dies in his home in Washington, DC. The playwright who collaborated with George S. Kaufman, Ira Gershwin, and George Gershwin on three musicals, Strike Up the Band, Let &…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM 
