Sunday, October 7, 2012
1907 The Gay White Way, a musical revue whose title meant something quite different in that innocent era, opens at the Casino Theatre for a then-healthy run of 105 performances. Blanche Ring…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Saturday, October 6, 2012
1919 Hitchy-Koo 1919 proves to be a minor success for star Raymond Hitchcock, but it produces the first song hit, "Old Fashioned Garden," for its 28-year-old composer, Cole Porter.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Friday, October 5, 2012
1896 Broadway premiere of Secret Service, which becomes a perennial touring hit for its author and star, William Gillette.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Thursday, October 4, 2012
1880 Writer Damon Runyon, whose short story "The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown" will go on to form the basis for the musical Guys and Dolls, is born today.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Wednesday, October 3, 2012
1859 Eleanora Duse born in Italy. One of the leading actresses of her day, "The Great Duse" will champion the realistic playwrights of the early 20th century, and will have some of…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Tuesday, October 2, 2012
1890 Julius Henry Marx is born in New York. Under the nickname "Groucho," he and his brothers form one of the most enduring comedy acts ever, The Marx Brothers, rising from Vaudevi…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Monday, October 1, 2012
1928 Mae West's controversial play Pleasure Man opens at the Biltmore Theatre. It's the story of an actor who has impregnated so many women that the brother of one of them takes up a…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Sunday, September 30, 2012
1915 The huge Hippodrome Theatre opens one of its most successful extravaganzas, Hip! Hip! Hooray!. Described by the New York Times as "a gargantuan spectacle, smarter and more sumptuou…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Saturday, September 29, 2012
1921 The operetta Blossom Time opens on Broadway. With a score of Franz Schubert themes rearranged by Sigmund Romberg, the show will go on to reach a then-epic run of 576 performances and sp…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Thursday, September 27, 2012
1898 Birthday of Vincent Youmans (1898-1946), one of the iconic Broadway composers of the 1920s, whose career will go into a nosedive after that bubbly decade ends. His scores will include N…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Wednesday, September 26, 2012
1898 Composer George Gershwin is born in New York. He'll go on to write Porgy and Bess, "Rhapsody in Blue," Girl Crazy and the Pulitzer Prize-winning musical, Of Thee I Sing, a…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Tuesday, September 25, 2012
1928 Chee-Chee, Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart's musical about castration in ancient China, opens to searing reviews and goes on to close after just 31 performances, the team's shor…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Monday, September 24, 2012
1902 Cheryl Crawford (1902-1986), one of the most powerful and influential women in Broadway history, is born today. As producer and/or director, she will have a decisive hand in productions…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Sunday, September 23, 2012
1912 Another upbeat musical hit for George M. Cohan and his family: Broadway Jones which opens a 176-performance run today at Cohan's eponymous theatre.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Saturday, September 22, 2012
1921 The Music Box Revue of 1921 is the premiere performance at the new Music Box Theatre, which opened on 45th Street today. This is the first edition of the Revue, itself the first to exhi…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Friday, September 21, 2012
1896 This day marks Florenz Ziegfeld's debut as a Broadway producer. The Parlor March opens at the Herald Square Theatre, starring Anna Held (his mistress and later wife). Ziegfeld's…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Wednesday, September 19, 2012
1904 Julian Eltinge, the famed female impersonator, makes his Broadway debut today in Mr. Wix of Wickham, the unsuccessful musical at the Bijou Theatre. The now legendary Jerome Kern, who wa…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Tuesday, September 18, 2012
1911 Disraeli, a new drama, opens tonight on Broadway at the Wallack's Theatre. It stars George Arliss as the British prime minister in this play by Louis N. Parker. Arliss' memorabl…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Monday, September 17, 2012
1879 The Daly Theatre opens at Broadway and Thirtieth Street in New York.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Sunday, September 16, 2012
1892 Songwriter and producer Earl Carroll (1892-1948) is born today. His best-remembered contribution to the theatre was the eponymous revue The Earl Carroll Vanities, which had nine edition…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Saturday, September 15, 2012
1889 Robert Benchley, the acclaimed actor, critic, and humorist of the early Twentieth Century, is born today. Benchley will marry Gertrude Darling and make his stage debut in this month in …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Friday, September 14, 2012
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 productions of Wo…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Thursday, September 13, 2012
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 12:00AM[SHARE]Wednesday, September 12, 2012
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 girls…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Monday, September 10, 2012
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 12:00AM[SHARE]Sunday, September 9, 2012
1873 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 Dream, the l…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Saturday, September 8, 2012
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 12:00AM[SHARE]Friday, September 7, 2012
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. He w…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Monday, September 3, 2012
1827 Birthday of John Drew Sr., patriarch of the Drew and Barrymore acting dynasties that will include Georgiana Drew Barrymore; siblings Ethel Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore and John Barrymore…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Sunday, September 2, 2012
1918 A stage adaptation of Booth Tarkington's popular Penrod stories proves a bust. It opens today and runs just 48 performances.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Saturday, September 1, 2012
1898 Birthday of one of Broadway's most endearing leading ladies of the 1920s, Marilyn Miller (1898-1936), whose vehicles will include Sally, Sunny, Rosalie and As Thousands Cheer.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Loading more stories…
