1896 Birthday of Ethel Waters (1896-1977), Broadway star of musicals and plays including The Member of the Wedding, As Thousands Cheer, Cabin in the Sky and Lew Leslie's Blackbirds.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1896 Birthday of Ruth Gordon, later to star on Broadway in dozens of plays, including Ethan Frome, The Country Wife and her own Years Ago; also in Thornton Wilder's The Matchmaker (sour…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1882 Birth of French playwright Jean Giraudoux, author of The Madwoman of Chaillot, Ondine, Intermezzo, Tiger at the Gates and Amphitryon 38. He lives to 1944.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1928 Six-time Tony-winning costume designer Florence Klotz is born today. Her designs will be worn by the original casts of Follies, A Little Night Music, Pacific Overtures, On the T…
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 …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:11AM1844 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 12:00AM1933 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 W…
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 Broa…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1888 Broadway premiere of the W. S. Gilbert & Arthur Sullivan operetta The Yeomen of the Guard.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1854 Happy Birthday Oscar Wilde, born today in Dublin. He will go on to write An Ideal Husband, The Importance of Being Earnest and other glittering comedies, before being laid low in a slan…
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 includin…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1924 Henry Oscar and Esme Biddle are the leads of Byron by Alice Law, at the Century Theatre in Bayswater, England. In a very small role is someone named Laurence Olivier.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:01AM1895 Birthday of legendary film choreographer Busby Berkeley (1895-1976), whose career will be launched with a 12-show burst of creativity on Broadway between the end of 1926 and the beginni…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1872 Birthday of Maude Adams (1872-1953), Broadway's first Peter Pan, who originated the role in 1904, and returned at least three times through 1915.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1900 Opening night of legendary musical Floradora at the Casino Theatre for a 553-performance run the first major hit of the 20th century. The production is remembered principally for the…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1913 Birthday of June Hovik, better known as June Havoc, even better known as namesake of Baby June, the character based on her in the musical Gypsy. The show pretty accurately sums up her c…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1895 Birthday of Charles MacArthur (1895-1956), newsman-turned-playwright, whose wisecracking oeuvre includes The Front Page, Twentieth Century (the play on which the musical On the Twentiet…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1787 Birthday of British actor Edmund Kean (1787-1833), considered one of the finest actors of the early 18th century. Among his greatest roles was Shakespeare's Richard III. He will be …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1916 A new play by a new playwright opens at the Provincetown Playhouse in New York's Greenwich Village, far from Broadway and Times Square, but the play and the author will soon revolut…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1903 Daniel Frohman opens the New Lyceum Theatre on Manhattan's West 45th Street with E. H. Sothern in The Proud Prince. Designed by Herts & Tallant, the theatre was later rechristen…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1920 Opening night for Eugene O'Neill's The Emperor Jones, starring Charles S. Gilpin as a onetime railway porter who goes to Africa and rises to become the corrupt head of a new empire ther…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1896 Birthday of Ethel Waters (1896-1977), Broadway star of musicals and plays including The Member of the Wedding, As Thousands Cheer, Cabin in the Sky and Lew Leslie's Blackbirds.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1896 Birthday of Ruth Gordon, later to star on Broadway in dozens of plays, including Ethan Frome, The Country Wife and her own Years Ago; also in Thornton Wilder's The Matchmaker (sour…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1882 Birth of French playwright Jean Giraudoux, author of The Madwoman of Chaillot, Ondine, Intermezzo, Tiger at the Gates and Amphitryon 38. He lives to 1944.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1928 Six-time Tony-winning costume designer Florence Klotz is born today. Her designs will be worn by the original casts of Follies, A Little Night Music, Pacific Overtures, On the Twentieth…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1923 Lionel Barrymore stars in David Belasco's Laugh, Clown, Laugh!, the Pagliacci-like story of a middle-aged clown who adopts a young girl, but later, as she grows into womanhood, find…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1906 Anna Held is The Parisian Model who inherits money mysteriously. Harry B. Smith provides the book and lyrics to Max Hoffman's score. While the show is directed by Julian Mitchell, t…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1864 Edwin Booth opens a four-month stand in Hamlet at the old Winter Garden Theatre.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1882 U.S. premiere of W. S. Gilbert & Arthur Sullivan's operetta Iolanthe, about fairies and other supernatural folk who get involved with Parliamentary peers.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1849 Birthday of author Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849-1924), author of several Broadway plays in the early the 20th century, including Little Lord Fauntleroy, The Little Princess, The Pretty…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM1937 Ethel Barrymore and Dudley Digges star in The Ghost of Yankee Doodle. Written by Sidney Howard, the play deals with a woman pacifist whose industrialist family stands to profit from sel…
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