1833 Birthday of master actor Edwin Booth (1833-1893), a major interpreter of Shakespeare and brother to actor Junius Brutus Booth and presidential assassin John Wilkes Booth. Broadway's…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1874 Birthday of pioneering African-American performer-composer Bert Williams (1874-1922), who wrote music for Broadway's In Dahomey (1903) and Abyssinia (1906), but achieved even greate…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1904 The timeless anthem "Give My Regards to Broadway" is first sung tonight on the Broadway stage tonight at the opening of George M. Cohan's Little Johnny Jones at the Libert…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1854 Birthday of John Philip Sousa (1854-1932), composer of countless marches, who also found time to write Broadway musicals including Chris and the Wonderful Lamp (1900), The Free Lance (1…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1904 The New York City subway system makes its maiden run today. The first line runs right through Times Square, making it much easier for audiences from the far reaches of Manhattan to get …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1844 William Harrigan, half of the iconic 1880s writing and performing team of Harrigan and Hart, is born today. He and Tony Hart will create the popular Mulligan Guards characters reflectin…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1927 Birthday of Barbara Cook, sylphlike ingenue of the 1950s who created lead roles in Flahooley, Candide, The Grass Harp and The Music Man (as the original Marian the Librarian), and later…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1904 Birthday of Moss Hart, Broadway playwright who will write or cowrite The Man Who Came to Dinner, Once in a Lifetime, As Thousands Cheer, You Can't Take it With You and Lady in the Dark,…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1844 Actress Sarah Bernhardt born today. "The Divine Sarah" will create many memorable roles in French and English, notably in Alexandre Dumas, fils' classic La Dame aux Cameli…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1903 Birthday of Jerome Lester Horwitz (1903-1952), better known by his stage name Curley Howard, who will team up with his brother Harry Moses Horwitz (a.k.a. Moe) and Larry Fine to form th…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1933 Trying to follow-up the success of their Pulitzer-winning musical Of Thee I Sing, George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin, George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind bring back President John Wintergre…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1882 Birthday of Bela Lugosi, Hungarian-born actor who plays a variety of character roles before landing the part that will make him an icon, the title role in Dracula, first on Broadway…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1907 Top 'o the World, a musical extravaganza, opens on Broadway to a then-impressive 156-performance run.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1888 Broadway premiere of the W. S. Gilbert & Arthur Sullivan operetta The Yeomen of the Guard.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1881 Birth of Pelham Grenville Wodehouse P.G. Wodehouse to theatre lovers in England. He will go on to write the "Jeeves" stories as well as many Broadway musicals including …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1893 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 12:00AM1730 Birthday of Oliver Goldsmith, British author of She Stoops to Conquer.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1893 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 12:00AM1857 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-winning …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1907 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 12:00AM1919 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, Cole Porter.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1880 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 12:00AM1859 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 12:00AM1928 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 12:00AM1892 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's musical …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1898 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 12:00AM1928 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 12:00AM1902 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 12:00AM1921 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 12:00AM1896 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 12:00AM1911 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…
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