Friday, October 14, 2011
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 12:00AMTuesday, October 11, 2011
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 7, 2011
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 Ring…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, October 1, 2011
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 12:00AMFriday, September 30, 2011
1915 The huge Hippodrome Theatre opens one of its most successful extravaganzas, Hip! Hip! Hooray!, with lyrics by John L. Golden, and starring Marjory Bentley and Dippy Diers. It will run 4…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, September 16, 2011
1892 Songwriter and producer Earl Carroll (1892-1948) is born today. His best-remembered contribution to Broadway was the eponymous revue The Earl Carroll Vanities, which had nine editions b…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, September 13, 2011
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 12:00AMThursday, September 8, 2011
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 12:00AMWednesday, September 7, 2011
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 12:00AMTuesday, September 6, 2011
1919 The Actors Equity Strike is settled at 3 AM, and some shows reopen today.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMMonday, September 5, 2011
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 and…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, September 4, 2011
1895 Actor E.H. Sothern scores a personal triumph in the adventure melodrama The Prisoner of Zenda.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, September 2, 2011
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 12:00AMThursday, September 1, 2011
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 12:00AMTuesday, August 30, 2011
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 12:00AMMonday, August 29, 2011
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 12:00AMSunday, August 28, 2011
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 12:00AMSaturday, August 27, 2011
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 12:00AMFriday, August 26, 2011
1904 "Clifford Bradshaw" is born today in the person of future British author Christopher Isherwood, today in Cheshire, England. Isherwood will go on to write "The Berlin Stor…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThursday, August 25, 2011
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 12:00AMWednesday, August 24, 2011
1985 Morrie Ryskind dies in his home in Washington, DC. The playwright who collaborated with George Kaufman, Ira Gershwin, and George Gershwin on three musicals, Strike Up the Band, Let '…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, August 21, 2011
1944 Robert Wright and George Forrest put words to classical themes by Edvard Grieg to create the operetta Song of Norway, based on Grieg's life. It opens an 860-performance run today at…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, August 20, 2011
1884 Actress Julia Sanderson, one of musical theatre's leading ladies during the first decades of the 20th century, is born today as Julia Sackett. Shows in which she starred included Th…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, August 19, 2011
1873 Birthday of comedian Fred Stone (1873-1959) who, partnered with David Montgomery, became one of the most beloved Broadway performers of the early 20th century. Among their notable hits …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThursday, August 18, 2011
1873 Birthday of Otto Harbach (1873-1963) who will write lyrics and/or book for more than three dozen musicals including Roberta; No, No, Nanette; The Cat and the Fiddle; Rose-Marie and The …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMMonday, August 15, 2011
1879 The legendary Barrymore theatre family gets one more to add to its roster today as Ethel Barrymore is born. Her father is actor Maurice Barrymore and her brothers are John and Lionel. B…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, August 13, 2011
1895 Bert Lahr (nee Irving Lahrheim), the future stage and screen clown, is born today in New York. Following an early career in Vaudeville, Lahr will enjoy a widely successful career on Bro…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, August 12, 2011
1881 Birthday of Cecil B. DeMille (1881-1959), who began his career as a Broadway actor in shows including Hearts Are Trumps and To Have and To Hold, and a Broadway playwright and producer, …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, August 9, 2011
1967 Playwright Joe Orton is found dead today in his London flat. Also found dead is his companion, writer and actor Kenneth Halliwell. It appears that Halliwell murdered the Loot playwright…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMMonday, August 8, 2011
1975 Liza Minnelli to the rescue! With only six days to learn the role of merry murderess Roxie Hart, the Academy Award-winning stage and film star agrees to fill in for an ailing Gwen Verdo…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, August 7, 2011
1919 Actors' Equity calls the longest strike in American theatre history. Francis Bacon's Lightin' and 12 other Broadway shows go dark as the fledgling union's struggle for r…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM 
