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…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Sunday, July 29, 2012
1981 An ad in Variety today accuses theatre critic John Simon of being "racist, anti-Semitic, misogynist, vicious, and derisive." Included in the ad/protest are excerpts from Simon…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Saturday, July 28, 2012
Once "The Boy," John Davidson — of stage, television and movies — returns to The Fantasticks as "The Old Actor."
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]1920 Two of Broadway's greatest songwriting talents make their mainstem debuts today: lyricst Lorenz Hart, age 25, and composer Richard Rodgers, age 18, open their first musical, Poor Li…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Friday, July 27, 2012
1982 Little Shop of Horrors begins a 2,209-performance run today at Off-Broadway's Orpheum Theatre. Based on the Roger Corman cult classic about a man-eating plant, this Alan Menken-Howa…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Wednesday, July 25, 2012
1853 Birthday of Broadway impresario David Belasco, namesake of the Belasco Theatre, who wrote and/or produced dozens of plays including The Return of Peter Grimm and Laugh, Clown, Laugh!, a…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Tuesday, July 24, 2012
1920 Producer Alexander H. Cohen, known for bringing quality plays to Broadway for six decades, is born today. Lastly represented on Broadway by the Noel Coward play, Waiting in the Wings, s…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Monday, July 23, 2012
1938 Helen Hayes is named the stage's greatest performer when the New York Sun prints its list of great performers today. Compiled after polling 150 notable people, mostly in the theatre…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Sunday, July 22, 2012
1912 The Shubert Brothers present the first of their annual Passing Show installments tonight. The Passing Show of 1912 features Charlotte Greenwood, Trixie Friganza, and Eugene and Willie H…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Saturday, July 21, 2012
1951 Birthday of actress Lillias White, whose Broadway appearances include Effie White in Dreamgirls, Miss Jones in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying and Funmilayo Anikulapo-K…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Friday, July 20, 2012
1961 Stop The World - I Want To Get Off opens tonight at the Queen's Theatre on London's West End. The musical, which follows the life of one man from birth to death, will run 485 p…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Wednesday, July 18, 2012
1928 Following the birth of "talkie" films, Variety prints an article focusing on the amount of legit theatre talent that is being sought for this new medium. Among those stage act…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Tuesday, July 17, 2012
1953 Actress Maude Adams dies today. Born in 1873, Adams, at the age of 32, played the title role in James M. Barrie's Peter Pan when it had its American premiere at the Empire Theatre i…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:01AM[SHARE]Monday, July 16, 2012
1924 Broadway premiere of George Dibdin-Pitt's Sweeney Todd, one of numerous adaptations of the penny-dreadful tale of murder and cannibalism that would later be adapted as a musical of …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Sunday, July 15, 2012
1856 Birthday of prolific producer Charles Frohman (1856-1915) who, often in collaboration with his brothers Daniel and Gustave, produced dozens of Broadway shows including Sherlock Holmes, …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Saturday, July 14, 2012
1918 Birthday of playwright Arthur Laurents, who will write numerous plays including The Time of the Cuckoo and Invitation to a March, but who is best known as librettist for musical classic…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Thursday, July 12, 2012
1895 Birthday of Oscar Hammerstein II, scion of a notable theatrical family who went on to become its most famous and honored member as a lyricist and librettist. Hammerstein enjoyed a major…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Wednesday, July 11, 2012
1915 A King is born today... in the form of Yul Brynner. Brynner will, of course, go on to star as one half of the title of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, The King And I, opposite Gert…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Monday, July 9, 2012
1930 In today's Variety, a review of a new vaudeville show at the Eighty Sixth Street Theatre singles out a newcomer from the world of cabaret. Reads the review: "She is a good look…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Sunday, July 8, 2012
1913 Birthday of theatre critic Walter Kerr (1913-1996), namesake of Broadway's Walter Kerr Theatre. In addition to his career as a reviewer, which took him from the New York Herald-Trib…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Friday, July 6, 2012
1939 A young Hollywood hopeful is forced to watch her own career fizzle as her boyfriend's blossoms in Lew Brown's new musical, Yokel Boy. Lois January and Buddy Ebsen star in the ne…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Wednesday, July 4, 2012
1898 Birthday of actress Gertrude Lawrence (1898-1952), longtime acting partner of Noel Coward (Private Lives, Tonight at 8:30) and star of musicals by the Gershwin brothers (Oh, Kay!, Lady …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Tuesday, July 3, 2012
1878 The original Yankee Doodle Dandy, George M. Cohan (1878-1942) is born on the 3rd of July, (not the 4th as ws family legend) says. A member of the vaudeville team The Four Cohans with hi…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Monday, July 2, 2012
1900 Birthday of director/producer/writer Tyrone Guthrie (1900-1971) who will stage Broadway productions of The Tenth Man, Tamburlaine the Great and the Leonard Bernstein musical Candide.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Sunday, July 1, 2012
1930 Comedian Jack Benny makes his Broadway debut in Earl Carroll's Vanities of 1930. The revue also featured Patsy Kelly, Jimmy Savo and the Collette Sisters.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Saturday, June 30, 2012
1924 Opening night of George White's Scandals of 1924, which features a score by George Gershwin, including "Somebody Loves Me." It will run 192 performances at the Apollo Thea…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Friday, June 29, 2012
1954 A star is born as Carol Haney's understudy in The Pajama Game goes on in place of the ailing actress and is discovered by theatre critic George Freedly. Writes Freedly in his review…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Thursday, June 28, 2012
1902 Birthday of Richard Rodgers (1902-1979), one of the most prolific and successful Broadway composers. His greatest successes came in partnership with lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II (Oklah…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Wednesday, June 27, 2012
1888 Birthday of Antoinette Perry (1888-1946), an actress and groundbreaking woman stage director who will help found the American Theatre Wing. In gratitude, the Wing will name its annual t…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Tuesday, June 26, 2012
1894 (probably) Actress Jeanne Eagels, best known for playing Miss Thompson in Rain, is born today.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Monday, June 25, 2012
1887 Birthday of legendary director George Abbott (1887-1995) whose long life (107 years) and colossal catalog (more than 110 Broadway shows, sometimes also as producer, writer or even actor…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Loading more stories…
