Sunday, September 14, 2014
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 productio…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, September 13, 2014
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 12:00AMFriday, September 12, 2014
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 g…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThursday, September 11, 2014
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 12:00AMWednesday, September 10, 2014
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 12:00AMTuesday, September 9, 2014
Broadway’s trade organization needs to rethink its decision to memorialize the beloved comedienne, a longtime theater booster.
SOURCE: NBC New York at 11:34AM1873 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 Drea…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMMonday, September 8, 2014
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 12:00AMSunday, September 7, 2014
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. …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, September 6, 2014
1919 The Actors' Equity strike is settled at 3 AM, and some shows reopen today.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, September 5, 2014
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…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThursday, September 4, 2014
1895 Actor E. H. Sothern scores a personal triumph in the adventure melodrama The Prisoner of Zenda.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThursday, July 17, 2014
Elaine Stritch, the brassy, tart-tongued Broadway actress and singer who became a living emblem of show business durability and perhaps the leading interpreter of Stephen Sondheim's wryly ac…
SOURCE: National Post (Canada) at 02:16PMMs. Stritch became a living emblem of show business durability and perhaps the leading interpreter of Stephen Sondheim’s wryly acrid musings on aging.
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 12:55PMWednesday, July 16, 2014
Sylvie Guillem: 'When I first asked Russell, he didn't want to do it. So I began insisting a lot'The first time I saw Russell dance, and the first time I saw his choreography, was when the …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:28AMWednesday, June 25, 2014
The unusually eventful post-season at the Metropolitan Opera continued on Wednesday morning when some administrative offices inside the opera house were vandalized with spray paint, the poli…
SOURCE: The New York Times Subscription at 01:48PMMonday, June 9, 2014
Another year, another Tony Awards telecast. In general, the gold went to the most deserving of the season: Few would carp about Bryan Cranston or Neil Patrick Harris nabbing top honors, and …
SOURCE: Time Out at 07:26PMWednesday, April 23, 2014
Palace Theatre, Watford: A smart two-hander, An Intervention begins with a drink-fuelled confrontation between A, a young woman who has just been on an anti-war protest, and her best friend,…
SOURCE: The Stage Registration at 06:13AMSaturday, April 5, 2014
San Diego Opera's leaders acknowledge a 'tough' road to keep the company open as calls for new leadership grow after abrupt closure vote.There's nothing opera buffs like better than a climac…
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 09:00AMFriday, March 21, 2014
Luck? Coincidence? Good sight lines? Short ladies' room lines? Outsized orchestra sections that can be sold at a premium price?
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:42PMThursday, January 30, 2014
1911 Hugh Herbert Hipple is born today in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. After dropping two H's, he will become suave actor Hugh Marlowe. In 1940 he will appear in Elmer Rice's Flight T…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMWednesday, January 29, 2014
1860 Birthday of Anton Chekhov (1860-1904), one of the fathers of modern drama, whose comparatively small oeuvre includes classics The Cherry Orchard, The Three Sisters, The Seagull and Uncl…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, January 28, 2014
1908 J. Lucifer Mephisto tempts a sculptor to be unfaithful in The Soul Kiss. Produced by Florenz Ziegfeld, this musical comedy stars Ralph Herz, Adeline Genee, and Cecil Lean. Harry B. Smit…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMMonday, January 27, 2014
1885 Birthday of master tunesmith Jerome Kern (1885-1945), who will write scores to many Broadway shows, including classics, Show Boat, Sally, Very Good Eddie and Roberta. His songs will res…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:01AMSaturday, January 25, 2014
1915 It'll be 90 in the Shade for only 40 performances. The unpaid actors will refuse to go on in this musical with a Jerome Kern score and book by Guy Bolton. Richard Carle and Marie Ca…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, January 24, 2014
1776 Birthday of E. T. A. Hoffmann (1776-1822), whose stories formed the basis of the ballets Coppelia and The Nutcracker.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMWednesday, January 22, 2014
1912 Stop in at the Liberty Theatre in New York and see just what it takes when you're Elevating a Husband. Edward Everett Horton, Conway Tearle and Jessie Carter are among the cast of t…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, January 21, 2014
1903 Dorothy, The Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion are first seen on Broadway today in the original musical The Wizard of Oz, with music by Paul Tietjens and book and lyrics by L…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMMonday, January 20, 2014
1896 Say good morning, George. Actually it was "Nathan" then Nathan Birnbaum born today. As George Burns, he and Gracie Allen will become headliners of vaudeville. Together they…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, January 19, 2014
1887 Birthday of Alexander Woollcott (1887-1943), actor, author, radio personality, theatre critic of The New York Times, and one of the original members of the Algonquin Round Table is born…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, January 18, 2014
1882 Birthday of A. A. Milne (1882-1956), best-known as creator of the Winnie-the-Pooh books, but also a prolific Broadway playwright, author of Mr. Pim Passes By, The Truth About Blayds, Be…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM 
