Friday, June 3, 2011
1866 Birthday of playwright and producer George Broadhurst (1866-1952), responsible for dozens of plays and musicals, including the first stage adaptation of Tarzan of the Apes. Also, namesa…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, May 27, 2011
1953 John Mills is The Uninvited Guest at London's St. James's Theatre. Written by his wife, Mary Hayley Bell, and co-starring Cathleen Nesbitt and Joan Greenwood, this story of a ma…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, May 15, 2011
1922 Father and son playwriting team J.C. and Elliot Nugent come up with Kempy. They also star in this comedy of mixed-up lovers, staged by Augustin Duncan. Performances will run at Broadway…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMWednesday, May 11, 2011
1903 In The Runaways with a book by Addison Brukhardt and a score by Raymond Hubbell, the hero is transported to a tropical island and will be made a king. The catch? He must marry the queen…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMMonday, May 9, 2011
1860 Birthday of James M. Barrie (1860-1937), British author and playwright whose creations will include What Every Woman Knows, The Little Minister, The Admirable Crichton and the work that…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, May 8, 2011
1892 Birthday of opera singer Ezio Pinza (1892-1957) who made two memorable Broadway appearances, in Fanny and South Pacific, the latter creating the role of Emile deBecque and singing "…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, May 7, 2011
1915 Among the dead after the sinking of the Lusitania are producer-manager Charles Frohman and playwright Charles Klein. Frohman's first success was Shenandoah. In 1893 he opened the Em…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, May 6, 2011
1912 Richard Le Gallienne's Orestes stars Edyth Olive and Rathmel Wilson. It plays at London's Boudoir Theatre.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMWednesday, May 4, 2011
1859 Birthday of A.L. "Abe" Erlanger (1859-1930), who, as half of the team of Klaw and Erlanger, produced dozens of Broadway shows during the first three decades of the 20th centur…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMMonday, May 2, 2011
1887 Birthday of Vernon Castle who, with wife and dancing partner Irene Castle, would redefine not just what dancing represented on Broadway, but the kind of music used for that dancing. He …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, May 1, 2011
1922 Comedy team Potash and Perlmutter are Partners Again. The show plays beyond the season at the Selwyn Theatre.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, April 30, 2011
1924 Birthday of Sheldon Harnick, who will go on to write lyrics to musicals including Fiorello!, She Loves Me, The Apple Tree and Fiddler on the Roof.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, April 29, 2011
Thursday, April 28, 2011
1900 Cho-Cho San and her passionate and tragic love illuminate David Belasco's adaptation of John Luther Long's story, Madame Butterfly. It is oddly paired on a double bill at The Duke of Y…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMWednesday, April 27, 2011
1903 The Cohan family is Running for Office. Son George M. wrote the book and the music at the 14th Street Theatre. It will run for six weeks.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, April 26, 2011
1926 Sex. It's a comedy. Mae West plays a Canadian woman with no time for those mountees; it's the British navy for her. It runs through one season, but the following it is raided as…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMMonday, April 25, 2011
1927 When a woman loves sailors so much she follows them all around the world, it's time to Hit the Deck. Vincent Youmans provides the score for Herbert Fields' book adapted from the…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, April 24, 2011
1905 Sir Henry Irving's production of The Merchant of Venice was to have opened the annual Shakespeare Festival at Stratford-upon-Avon. But Irving was taken ill and Frank Benson and his …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, April 23, 2011
1564 Okay, no one's actually certain that April 23, 1564 was William Shakespeare's birthday, but that's the accepted date. Over the next 52 years, the Bard would pen such works a…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, April 22, 2011
1895 Broadway debut of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, starring Henry Miller as Jack Worthing.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMWednesday, April 20, 2011
1908 The four Cohans are the stars of The Yankee Prince. George M. wrote, directed and co-produced this musical at Broadway's Knickerbocker Theatre. It will run 28 performances.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, April 19, 2011
Our top transfers from the silver screen to the Great White Way.
SOURCE: Time Out New York at 07:57PM1946 Actor Tim Curry is born in Cheshire, England. He will create memorable Broadway roles including Frank N. Furter in The Rocky Horror Show, Mozart in Amadeus, Dada artist Tristan Tzara in…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMMonday, April 18, 2011
1936 In Irwin Shaw's Bury the Dead the task becomes impossible as the six dead soldiers refuse the grave. This one-act protest against the war will run three months at the Ethel Barrymor…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, April 17, 2011
1917 John Barrymore stars in Gerald DuMaurier's Peter Ibbetson at Broadway's Republic Theatre. Lionel Barrymore, Constance Collier, Madge Evans, and Laura Hope Crews are also in the …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, April 15, 2011
1929 In Camel Through the Needle's Eye, Miriam Hopkins plays a poor woman who discovers the hard way that money can't buy happiness. This drama will run six months.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThursday, April 14, 2011
1865 Our American Cousin starring Laura Keene is in performance tonight when John Wilkes Booth shoots President Abraham Lincoln at the Ford's Theatre in Washington D.C. Booth's broth…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, April 12, 2011
1905 The colossal Hippodrome Theatre opens on Broadway today. The inaugural production is the colorful extravaganza A Yankee Circus on Mars. It will run 176 performances.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMMonday, April 11, 2011
1914 Mrs. Patrick Campbell and Herbert Beerbohm Tree are the very first Eliza Doolittle and Professor Higgins. George Bernard Shaw's tale of class and character, Pygmalion, wins 118 perf…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSunday, April 10, 2011
1868 Birthday of master actor George Arliss, who starred in a series of historical vehicles, including Hamilton and Disraeli.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, April 8, 2011
1904 The New York Times moves its editorial offices to Long Acre Square, prompting a name change to Times Square.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM 
