Monday, July 18, 2011
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]Sunday, July 17, 2011
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]Saturday, July 16, 2011
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]Friday, July 15, 2011
1905 Birthday of lyricist and librettist Dorothy Fields (1905-1974), daughter of vaudeville star Lew Fields of Weber & Fields. Among her numerous credits over six decades from the 1920s …
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Thursday, July 14, 2011
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]Tuesday, July 12, 2011
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]Monday, July 11, 2011
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]Saturday, July 9, 2011
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]Friday, July 8, 2011
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]Wednesday, July 6, 2011
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]Monday, July 4, 2011
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]Sunday, July 3, 2011
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]Saturday, July 2, 2011
1900 Birthday of director/producer/writer Tyrone Guthrie (1900-1971) who will stage Broadway productions of The Tenth Man, Taburlaine the Great and the Leonard Bernstein musical Candide.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Friday, July 1, 2011
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]Thursday, June 30, 2011
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]Wednesday, June 29, 2011
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]Monday, June 27, 2011
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]Sunday, June 26, 2011
1894 (probably) Actress Jeanne Eagels, best known for playing Miss Thompson in Rain, is born today.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Saturday, June 25, 2011
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]Friday, June 24, 2011
1942 Gypsy Rose Lee and Bobby Clark are featured in Michael Todd's musical revue, Star and Garter, which opens a 609-performance run at the Music Box Theatre.
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Thursday, June 23, 2011
1927 Birthday of Robert Louis Fosse, better known as Bob Fosse (1927-1987), master director-choreographer known for his sexy hip-swiveling dances in shows including Pajama Game, Sweet Charit…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Wednesday, June 22, 2011
1920 Opening night of the starry Ziegfeld Follies of 1920 at the New Amsterdam Theatre, featuring performances by Fanny Brice, W.C. Fields and Moran & Mack; and music by Irving Berlin, H…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Tuesday, June 21, 2011
1903 Caricaturist Al Hirschfeld (1903-2003) is born today. His distinctive looping line drawings will capture the essence of Broadway shows from the 1920s through the early 2000s. The Martin…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Monday, June 20, 2011
1905 Birthday of playwright Lillian Hellman (1905-1984), who will go on to write The Children's Hour, The Little Foxes, Another Part of the Forest, Watch on the Rhine and the book to Can…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Sunday, June 19, 2011
1965 Actor Sydney Chaplin leaves the Broadway production of Funny Girl after settling with the producers. Despite rumors that Chaplin has left the show because of some friction between himse…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Thursday, June 16, 2011
1888 Birthday of Broadway comedian Bobby Clark (1888-1960), best known for his drawn-on eyeglasses and slapstick comedy style, often in tandem with sidekick Paul McCullough. Clark's resu…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Worked on Broadway this past season? June 20 is the deadline to get your headshot in "The 2010-2011 Playbill Broadway Yearbook."
SOURCE: Playbill at 05:35PM[SHARE]1894 Birthday of Robert Russell Bennett (1894-1981), orchestrator of Broadway classics including the original Sunny; Show Boat; Anything Goes; Oklahoma!; Annie Get Your Gun; Kiss Me, Kate; T…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Tuesday, June 14, 2011
1929 Birthday of Broadway composer Cy Coleman, (1929-2004) whose multidextrous scores for shows like Sweet Charity, I Love My Wife, On the Twentieth Century, The Will Rogers Follies, The Lif…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Monday, June 13, 2011
1963 Stage actor Howard DaSilva finds himself at the other end of the spectrum: as director of a Lewis John Carlino double bill. Shelley Winters and Jack Warden star in the two one acts, Sno…
SOURCE: Playbill at 12:00AM[SHARE]Sunday, June 12, 2011
Robert Lopez, co-author and co-songwriter on the blockbuster musical Book of Mormon, said he is planning a new musical after he finishes a film musical for Disney this summer
SOURCE: Playbill at 11:45PM[SHARE]Loading more stories…
