Saturday, February 9, 2013
1865 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 12:00AMThursday, February 7, 2013
1812 Birthday of author Charles Dickens (1812-1870), whose "A Christmas Carol" has been adapted to the stage dozens of times and provides a durable annuity for theatre troupes ever…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, February 5, 2013
1900 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 t…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMMonday, February 4, 2013
1938 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 12:00AMSunday, February 3, 2013
1938 When a grandfather holds off Death (by chasing him up a tree) so he can be sure his grandson will be taken care of, he's working On Borrowed Time. This comedy was adapted by Paul Os…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, January 15, 2013
1622 Birthday of Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by the nom de plume Moliere (1622-1673), one of France's greatest playwrights, who will go on to write Tartuffe, School for Wives, Scapin, …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, January 11, 2013
1899 "I would rather play Ibsen than eat and that's often what it amounts to," said Eva Le Gallienne, born in London today. Her determination and drive will lead her to a st…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, January 8, 2013
1900 Blanche Bates, who will go on to play Cho-Cho San in Madame Butterfly, now stars in David Belasco's Naughty Anthony. Oliver Redpath co-stars in this comedy at the Herald Square Thea…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThursday, January 3, 2013
1909 Birthday of Victor Borge (1909-2000), pianist and comedian whose 1953 Comedy in Music ran 888 performances, the longest run ever for a solo musical on Broadway. He followed it with Come…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMMonday, December 31, 2012
1879 World premiere of W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York, with Alice Barnett as Ruth.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, December 25, 2012
1865 Birthday of Fay Templeton (1865-1939), durable musical comedy actress from the 1870s to the 1930s. Her appearances include Roberta, Forty-Five Minutes From Broadway and Fiddle-dee-dee.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMMonday, December 24, 2012
1904 Lillian Russell, a.k.a Diamond Lil, stars in Lady Teazle, a musical based on The School for Scandal. John Kendrick Bangs and Roderic C. Penfield provide the music to a score by A. Baldw…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, December 21, 2012
1889 Beatrice Cameron stars as Nora Helmer in the U.S. premiere of Henrik Ibsen's groundbreaking drama, A Doll's House at Palmer's Theatre.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThursday, December 20, 2012
1912 Laurette Taylor stars in Peg O' My Heart, written and directed by her husband, J. Hartley Manners. This story of a winsome orphan becomes a vehicle for Taylor, and she will revive it of…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMWednesday, December 19, 2012
1865 Birthday of Mary Augusta Davey, who acted under the names Minnie Maddern, Minnie Maddern Fiske and Mrs. Fiske (1865-1932). Performer, director and producer of many dramas before and aft…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, December 18, 2012
A slew of splendid Broadway revivals and boundary-busting experiments Off Broadway made for a great year.
SOURCE: Time Out at 11:53AM1907 Playwright Christopher Fry (1907-2005), author of Ring Round the Moon and The Lady's Not for Burning, is born, with the additional surname of Harris, in Bristol, England.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMMonday, December 17, 2012
1906 Opening night for Lew Dockstader's Minstrels, the final Broadway appearance for one of the last of the great minstrel shows. It runs 26 performances at The New York Theatre.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, December 16, 2012
1899 Noel Coward is born today. He authored plays such as Hay Fever, Design for Living and Private Lives, many of which he performed in; scripts for the films "Brief Encounter" and…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, December 14, 2012
From Broadway to Off-Off, here are 20 plays, musicals and revivals you need to see this winter.
SOURCE: Time Out at 04:56PM1885 Birthday of Brock Pemberton (1885-1950), producer of many Broadway plays and comedies during a 30-year career, including the original Harvey, Miss Lulu Bett, Six Characters in Search of…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThursday, December 13, 2012
1925 Birthday in West Plains, MO, of actor Dick Van Dyke, who will appear on Broadway in Bye Bye Birdie and The Girls Against the Boys, and create memorable TV and film roles in "The Di…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMWednesday, December 12, 2012
1902 There will be two debuts in Everyman. Edith Wynne Matthison makes her American debut, and Charles Rann Kennedy makes his stage debut.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, December 11, 2012
1893 Oscar Wilde gets his second Broadway production in a year with the U.S. premiere of his play A Woman of No Importance at Miner's Fifth Avenue Theatre.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, December 8, 2012
1903 Mam'selle Napoleon is Anna Held in this musical at the Knickerbocker Theatre. Produced by Held's husband Florenz Ziegfeld, with a score by Gustav Luders, this show will have a 4…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, December 7, 2012
1879 Composer Rudolf Friml (1879-1972) is born in Prague. He will emigrate to the U.S. and become one of the top Broadway operetta composers of the 1910s and 1920s. His works will include Th…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThursday, December 6, 2012
1896 Birthday of Ira Gershwin (1896-1983), one of Broadway's most sterling lyricists, mainly in collaboration with his brother George Gershwin. Ira's musicals will include Porgy and …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, December 1, 2012
Backers hoped the show would be a long-running tourist attraction at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood. The closing is attributed to disappointing ticket sales."Iris," the extravagant Cirque du…
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 12:38AM1907 Theatrical producer Herman Levin is born in Philadelphia, PA.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, November 27, 2012
1906 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 12:00AM 
