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]Friday, August 31, 2012
1897 John Drew and Billie Burke (in her Broadway debut) are the stars of the new play, My Wife, opening tonight at the Empire Theatre. There will be 129 performances.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Thursday, August 30, 2012
1898 Birthday of actress Shirley Booth (1898-1992), who will appear in more than 30 Broadway plays in between film and TV stints. Her major stage roles include A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, The …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Wednesday, August 29, 2012
1899 The Girl From Maxime's one of Georges Feydeau's most sparkling farces, has its U.S. premiere at the Criterion Theatre.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Tuesday, August 28, 2012
1917 Jerome Kern, Guy Bolton and P.G. Wodehouse open their romantic musical-comedy Leave It To Jane tonight at the Longacre Theatre. The score includes "Just You Watch My Step," &q…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Monday, August 27, 2012
Longtime Playbill columnist Louis Botto takes a final "Backward Glance" after 75 years on the aisle.
SOURCE: Playbill at 02:00PM[SHARE]1878 Birthday of Sam S. Shubert (1878-1905), co-founder of the theatre-owning and producing titan, the Shubert Organization. Broadway's Shubert Theatre is named for him.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Sunday, August 26, 2012
1880 Broadway director-producer Philip Moeller is born today in New York. Among his greatest theatrical achievements are productions of Biography, Elizabeth the Queen, Mourning Becomes Elect…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Saturday, August 25, 2012
1918 Birthday of composer Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990), who will bridge the worlds of classical and Broadway, both as conductor for the New York Philharmonic and as composer of classic scor…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Thursday, August 23, 2012
1852 Broadway premiere of Uncle Tom's Cabin, based on the novel about slavery by Harriet Beecher Stowe.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Wednesday, August 22, 2012
1922 Theoni V. Aldredge, one of Broadway's foremost costume designers of the late 20th century, is born today in Greece. Included among her dozens of Broadway projects will be A Chorus L…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Tuesday, August 21, 2012
1944 Robert Wright and George Forrest put words to classical themes by Edvard Grieg to create the operetta Song of Norway, based on Grieg's life. It opens an 860-performance run today at…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Monday, August 20, 2012
1884 Actress Julia Sanderson, one of musical theatre's leading ladies during the first decades of the 20th century, is born today as Julia Sackett. Shows in which she starred included Th…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Sunday, August 19, 2012
1873 Birthday of comedian Fred Stone (1873-1959) who, partnered with David Montgomery, became one of the most beloved Broadway performers of the early 20th century. Among their notable hits …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Saturday, August 18, 2012
1873 Birthday of Otto Harbach (1873-1963) who will write lyrics and/or book for more than three dozen musicals including Roberta; No, No, Nanette; The Cat and the Fiddle; Rose-Marie and The …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Friday, August 17, 2012
1871 Playwright Jesse Lynch Williams is born today. During the 1917-1918 theatre season, Williams' play, Why Marry, will win the first-ever Pulitzer Prize for drama.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Thursday, August 16, 2012
1913 Montague Glass' comedy Potash and Perlmutter begins a hit run at the Cohan Theatre, starring George Sidney and Alexander Carr as the hapless pair.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Wednesday, August 15, 2012
1879 The legendary Barrymore theatre family gets one more to add to its roster today as Ethel Barrymore is born. Her father is actor Maurice Barrymore and her brothers are John and Lionel. B…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Tuesday, August 14, 2012
1888 Comedian DeWolf Hopper debuts his dramatic recitation of the poem Casey at the Bat at Wallack's Theatre. It will become a cornerstone of his act for the next 40 years.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Monday, August 13, 2012
1895 Bert Lahr (nee Irving Lahrheim), the future stage and screen clown, is born today in New York. Following an early career in Vaudeville, Lahr will enjoy a widely successful career on Bro…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Sunday, August 12, 2012
1881 Birthday of Cecil B. DeMille (1881-1959), who began his career as a Broadway actor in shows including Hearts Are Trumps and To Have and To Hold, and a Broadway playwright and producer, …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Saturday, August 11, 2012
1867 Actor-producer Joseph Weber, of Weber and Fields, is born today.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Friday, August 10, 2012
1911 Birthday of playwright Jerome Chodorov, who wrote the play, My Sister Eileen, which he later adapted as the book for the musical Wonderful Town, which won him a Tony Award. Other plays …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Thursday, August 9, 2012
1967 Playwright Joe Orton is found dead today in his London flat. Also found dead is his companion, writer and actor Kenneth Halliwell. It appears that Halliwell murdered the Loot playwright…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Wednesday, August 8, 2012
1975 Liza Minnelli to the rescue! With only six days to learn the role of merry murderess Roxie Hart, the Academy Award-winning stage and film star agrees to fill in for an ailing Gwen Verdo…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Tuesday, August 7, 2012
1886 Future stage actress and second wife of Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr., Billie Burke is born today in Washington, D.C. Born Mary William Ethelbert Appleton, Burke spent her childhood in England,…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Monday, August 6, 2012
1947 Today's Variety announces that John Garfield will star in the premiere production of a new Tennessee Williams play, titled A Streetcar Named Desire. As history will have it, however…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Sunday, August 5, 2012
1977 All Broadway marquee lights are dimmed tonight in honor of actor Alfred Lunt who died two days earlier. This is only the third time up to that point that such an action has been taken.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Saturday, August 4, 2012
1981 Melvyn Douglas dies today at the age of 80. Born in Macon, Georgia as Melvyn Edouard Heselberg, Douglas went on to become one of the more accomplished stage actors of his generation. Am…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Friday, August 3, 2012
1921 Composer Richard Adler is born today. Along with Jerry Ross he will go on to write two of the most influential musicals of the 1950s: The Pajama Game and Damn Yankees. The successful pa…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Thursday, August 2, 2012
1900 Birthday of actress and singer Helen Morgan, who rose to fame as a nightclub performer. She had a show at Billy Rose's Backstage Club, where the crowded conditions made her perch on…
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