Monday, May 25, 2015
1900 A week-long engagement at Dublin's Gaiety Theatre by the Irish Literary Theatre does not cause much of a stir. The company stages The Bending of the Bough by George Moore, Maeve by Edwa…
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM1922 Arthur Wing Pinero's The Enchanted Cottage constructs the story of a couple who find themselves transformed by their love for one another. Owen Nares and Laura Cowie are the lucky pair.…
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM1873 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 05:58PM1882 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 05:58PM1893 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 05:58PM1901 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…
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM1905 Birthday of composer Harold Arlen (1905-1986) a cantor's son who cut his musical teeth in 1920s Harlem, and went on to write music for Broadway shows, Star and Garter. Jamaica, House of…
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM1898 Birthday of Broadway leading lady and producer Katharine Cornell (1898-1974), who starred in and/or produced A Bill of Divorcement, The Age of Innocence, The Barretts of Wimpole Street,…
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM1930 Birthday of Marni Nixon, singer whose voice will be dubbed into the mouths of better-known performers, including Natalie Wood in the film of West Side Story. She will make her Broadway …
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM1876 Birthday of Broadway comedian Victor Moore (1876-1962), who starred or co-starred in the original casts of many musical comedies, notably Of Thee I Sing, Anything Goes, Louisiana Purcha…
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM1911 Chicago's Columbia Theatre opens its doors today. Architect J.E.O. Pridmore designed this house which seats 1,550. In 1923 it will become the Adelphi. In 1974 its doors will close for d…
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM1907 The Herald Square Theatre in New York hosts the American premiere of Widower's Houses. George Bernard Shaw's comedy is offered by the Shuberts in 16 special matinee performances. Effie …
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM1925 Ernest Truex is The Fall Guy for a group of dope dealers. This James Gleason-George Abbott comedy will run at the Eltinge Theatre for almost three months.
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM1928 Birthday of playwright Edward Albee, who will go on to write Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Goat, Or Who Is Sylvia? and Pulitzer-winners, A Delicate Balance, Seascape and Three Ta…
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PM1928 It's one for all, and all for almost 10 months of The Three Musketeers. William A. McGuire stages his book based on the Dumas novel. P.G. Wodehouse and Clifford Grey write the lyrics fo…
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:58PMSunday, May 24, 2015
1925 Godfrey Tearle is Hamlet in the Fellowship Players production at the Prince of Wales Theatre. The Fellowship offers Sunday performances so these employed professionals have the chance t…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, May 23, 2015
1904 The Southerners, with a score by black composer Will Marion Cook, is the first time an entire black chorus is used in a show with a white cast. Lead Eddie Leonard appears in blackface i…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMTuesday, May 19, 2015
1924 The Marx Brothers star in I'll Say She Is at the Casino Theatre in New York. This revue, with a book by Will B. Johnstone and music by Tom Johnstone, takes the boys through murder,…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMMonday, May 18, 2015
1923 Sweet Nell of Old Drury runs beyond the season at the 48th Street Theatre in New York. Alfred Lunt stars as Charles II and Laurette Taylor as his mistress Nell Gwynne. Lynn Fontanne and…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMSaturday, May 16, 2015
1946 "No you can't get a man with a gun," but when you're Ethel Merman you can sure try. She's the star of Richard Rodgers & Oscar Hammerstein II's producti…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMFriday, May 15, 2015
1922 Father and son playwriting team J. C. Nugent and Elliott Nugent come up with Kempy. They also star in this comedy of mixed-up lovers, staged by Augustin Duncan. Performances will ru…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AMThursday, May 14, 2015
1931 Playwright, producer David Belasco dies today in New York City. He began his theatrical life as a child actor in California and started writing plays in his twenties. He adapted the Joh…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM 
