Monday, May 25, 2015
1873 Birthday of singer/actress Anna Held, future wife of Florenz Ziegfeld, and the classic sexy French flirt of her era. She will play this role in a series of musical vehicles including La…
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM1856 Comedian Eddie Foy is born today. He'll star in vaudeville and on Broadway, notably in Mr. Hamlet of Broadway, The Earl and the Girl and Piff! Paff!! Pouf!!!. His son, Eddie Foy Jr., wi…
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM1911 Constance Collier, Tyrone Power (father of the future film star), and Sidney Greenstreet are in the cast of Thais. Paul Wilstach bases his play on the Anatole France story.
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM1926 Sean O'Casey's Juno and the Paycock has its U.S. premiere at Broadway's Mayfair Theatre. It runs 74 performances.
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM1848 English actress Ellen Terry is born today. She will make her American debut in 1883 with Henry Irving's company. She will go on to star in classic and contemporary works. The Terry fami…
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM1894 Birthday of playwright Ben Hecht (1894-1964) , author or co-author of The Front Page, Twentieth Century, Jumbo, The Egoist and The Great Magoo.
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM1930 Edward Franklin Albee, vaudeville producer and theatre owner, dies today in Palm Beach, Florida. He joined B.F. Keith in the presentation of variety shows and by 1920 had a vaudeville c…
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM1900 The scandalous Sapho [sic] is staged at Wallack's Theatre in New York. Based on Alphonse Daudet's novel, it stars Olga Nethersole as an evil woman who seduces a pure young man to keep a…
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM1946 Mary Martin and Yul Brynner play a Chinese couple who separate when the husband goes off on a quest in Lute Song. Raymond Scott composed the score, and Sidney Howard and Will Irwin wrot…
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM1912 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 this …
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM1903 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 05:58PM1915 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 Cahill…
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM1911 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 To the We…
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM1882 Birthday of John Barrymore (1882-1942), actor in the grand style, and scion of the Barrymore acting clan. Though he began as a light comedian, he became identified with the classics, no…
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM1893 Birthday of playwright and producer Russel Crouse (1893-1966), whose prodigious output of scripts, many in partnership with Howard Lindsay, includes State of the Union and The Great Seb…
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM1879 John Wellington Wells deals his magic and spells for the first time on Broadway with the American premiere of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Sorcerer at the old Broadway Theatre.
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM1933 Maxwell Anderson indicts Both Your Houses, a political story at the Royale Theatre. Morris Carnovsky is in the cast of this Theatre Guild production. It will go on to win the Pulitzer P…
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM1860 Birthday of Victor Herbert (1860-1924), Broadway's operetta king, composer of Babes in Toyland, The Red Mill, Mlle. Modiste, Naughty Marietta, Sweethearts and numerous editions of the Z…
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM1938 Thornton Wilder turns the spotlight on the simple trials and tribulations of Our Town. Martha Scott and Frank Craven are among the cast at the Henry Miller Theatre. The production will …
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM1907 Ray Middleton is born in Chicago, Illinois today. In 1946 he will star opposite Ethel Merman in Annie Get Your Gun, and be featured in Man of La Mancha.
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM1865 Birthday of actress Beatrice Stella Tanner, better known by her stage name, Mrs. Patrick Campbell (1865-1940). She had a long correspondence with playwright George Bernard Shaw, and app…
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM1904 Future set and costume designer Oliver Messel is born today in London.
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM1902 Joseph Hart's popular musical Foxy Grandpa opens a 120-performance run today at the 14th Street Theatre.
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM1859 Sholem Yakov Rabinowitz is born in Ukraine. Under the pen name Sholom Aleichim (1859-1916) he will write many stories in Yiddish, several of which will be adapted as plays, most notably…
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM1893 Birthday of Jimmy "Schnozzola" Durante (1893-1980), big-nosed comedian who would star on Broadway in Show Girl, The New Yorkers and Strike Me Pink. Catchphrases included "I got a millio…
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM1896 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 will appe…
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM1776 Birthday of E.T.A. Hoffman (1776-1822), whose stories formed the basis of the ballets Coppelia and The Nutcracker.
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM1925 Birthday of actor Paul Newman, who will star on Broadway in Picnic, The Sweet Bird of Youth and The Desperate Hours before going to Hollywood and becoming a film star. He will make a la…
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM1885 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 05:58PM1860 Birthday of Anton Chekhov (1860-1904), one of the fathers of modern drama, whose comparatively small oeuvre includes classics The Cherry Orchard, Three Sisters, The Seagull and Uncle Va…
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM1901 A man marries his fiancee On the Quiet because his parents want him to finish Yale. Playwright Augustus Thomas based this comedy on a real incident. It unfolds at the Madison Square The…
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