
Playbill Vault’s Today in Theater History: March 19
1872 Birthday of singer and actress Anna Held, future wife of Florenz Ziegfeld, and classic…
1872 Birthday of singer and actress Anna Held, future wife of Florenz Ziegfeld, and classic…
In 1970, Purlie opens on Broadway with Melba Moore and Cleavon Little. 1926 at Sean…
In 2015, Helen Mirren starred in The audience on Broadway. 1920 Ziegfeld girls from 1920…
1865 Birthday of Mary Augusta Davey, who acts as Minnie Maddern, Minnie Maddern Fiske and…
In 1992, Crazy of you opens on Broadway. 1900 Stages of Irish Literary Theater The…
1904 Set designer and costume designer Oliver Messel was born in London.1911 Ethel Barrymore given…
1889 Playwright and director George S. Kaufman was born in Pittsburgh. Former journalist, Kaufman makes…
1900 The scandalous Sappho is staged at Wallack’s Theater in New York. Based on the…
In 2006, winner of the Pulitzer Prize rabbit hole opens on Broadway. 1912 composer’s birthday…
In 2010, Liev Schreiber and Scarlett Johansson play in Arthur Miller A view from the…
1919 The Lafayette Players of New York open the new Dunbar Theater in Philadelphia with…
1893 dancer birthday Ann Pennington, who flaunts her legendary dimpled knee in numerous editions of…
1903 Mam’selle Napoleon is Anna Held in the musical at the Knickerbocker Theater. Produced by…
1896 Birthday of Ira Gershwin, one of Broadway’s brightest lyricists, mostly in collaboration with her…
1888 One of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s greatest hits opens: Little Lord Fauntleroy, with Tommy Russell.…
1907 Theater producer Herman Levin was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.1924 Fred and Adele Astaire star…
1906 Anna Held is The Parisian model who inherits money mysteriously. Harry B. Smith provides…
1922 The lucky is the brother who doesn’t get the girl in AA Milne’s play.…
1906 George Arliss and Mrs. Fiske star in The New York idea, the play by…
1889 Playwright and director George S. Kaufman was born in Pittsburgh. Former journalist, Kaufman imposes…
1874 Birthday of pioneering African-American artist-songwriter Bert Williams, who writes music for Broadway’s In Dahomey…
1818 Playwright and novelist Ivan Turgenev was born in Russia. His most remarkable piece is…
1854 Birthday party of John Philip Sousa, composer of countless marches, who also found time…
1920 birthday of Nanette Fabray, Broadway Musical Star High buttoned shoes, Love life (Tony Award),…
1920 birthday of Nanette Fabray, Broadway musical star High buttoned shoes, Love life (Tony Award),…
1844 Edward Harrigan, half of Harrigan and Hart’s iconic 1880s writing and performance team, was…
1919 Hitchy-Koo 1919 turns out to be a minor hit for star Raymond Hitchcock, but…
1859 Eleanora Duse was born in Italy. One of the main actors of his time,…
The Blinn College-Brenham Campus Theatrical Arts Program will open its 2021-22 season with theatrical arts…
Clockwise from top left: Victoria Serra, Mitchell Cohen, Lori Kelley and Thom Gilbert featured in…
1921 The Music Box Magazine of 1921 is the first production of the new Music…
1910 Birthday of Lehman Engel, the Tony-winning Broadway conductor who founded the BMI Musical Theater…
1912 Jane Cowl becomes a star playing in In law by Bayard Veiller. The play…
1897 John Drew and Billie Burke (in her Broadway debut) star in the new play,…
1885 London’s hit operetta The Mikado, by WS Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan, premiered on Broadway…
1853 Birthday of Broadway impresario David Belasco, namesake of Belasco Theater, who wrote and /…
1920 Producer Alexander H. Cohen, known for bringing quality plays to Broadway for six decades,…
1951 Birthday of Lillias White, whose Broadway appearances include Effie White in Dream girls, Miss…
1913 Birthday of theater critic Walter Kerr, namesake of the Walter Kerr Theater on Broadway.…
1878 The original Yankee Doodle Dandy, George M. Cohan was born July 3, not July…
1887 Birthday of legendary director George Abbott, whose long life (107 years) and colossal catalog…
1903 Cartoonist Al Hirschfeld was born in St. Louis, Missouri. His distinctive looping line art…
1946 Orson Welles takes the stage in Around the world, musical he adapted from Jules…
1905 Theater producer Sam S. Shubert dies in train crash. His brothers Lee and JJ…
1915 Among the dead after the sinking of the Lusitania are producer-manager Charles Frohman and…
1917 Birthday of Betty Comden, lyricist and Broadway librettist, mainly in collaboration with Adolph Green.…
1917 birthday of Betty Comden, Broadway lyricist and librettist, mainly in collaboration with Adolph Green.…
1887 Anniversary of Vernon Castle who, along with his wife and dance partner Irene Castle,…
1924 Birthday of Sheldon Harnick, who writes lyrics for musicals including Fiorello !, She loves…
1926 Sex. It is a comedy. Mae West plays a Canadian who has no time…
1926 Sex. It is a comedy. Mae West plays a Canadian who doesn’t have time…
1925 Tallulah Bankhead and Edna Best are Fallen angels at the Globe Theater in London.…
1912 Karl Malden was born in Chicago, Illinois. He appears in numerous Broadway productions, most…
1912 Karl Malden was born in Chicago, Illinois. He appears in numerous Broadway productions, most…
1872 Birthday of singer and actress Anna Held, future wife of Florenz Ziegfeld, and the…
1927 Birthday of composer John Kander, who composes scores for Broadway Cabaret, Chicago, Kiss of…
1927 composer’s birthday John Kander, who composes scores for Broadway Cabaret, Chicago, Kiss of the…
1928 Playwright’s birthday Edward Albee, who writes Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The goat or…
1856 Comedian Eddie Foy was born. He plays in vaudeville and on Broadway, notably in…
1920 Ziegfeld girls from 1920 enjoys a run at the New Amsterdam Roof Theatre. This…
Theater would not be theater without the efforts of black artists, and it is important…
1859 Sholem Yakov Rabinowitz was born in Ukraine. Under the pseudonym Sholem Aleichem, he wrote…
1859 Sholem Yakov Rabinowitz was born in Ukraine. Under the pseudonym Sholem Aleichem, he wrote…
1878 Hungarian playwright Ferenc Molnar was born in Budapest. He writes The good fairy, the…
1903 Daniel Frohman opens the New Lyceum Theater on West 45th Street in Manhattan with…
1926 Beatrice Lily and Charles Winner are featured in the musical review Oh please at…
1888 One of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s greatest hits opens: Little Lord Fauntleroy, with Tommy Russell.…
1892 Songwriter and producer Earl Carroll was born. His best remembered contribution to theater is…
1892 Songwriter and producer Earl Carroll was born. His best-known contribution to the theater is…
1901 Birthday of actor/director/producer/teacher/coach Lee Strasberg in Austria-Hungary. As founder of the Group Theater and…
1904 The timeless anthem “Give My Regards to Broadway” is sung for the first time…
1946 Mary Martin and Yul Brynner play a Chinese couple who break up when the…
1907 The writer and playwright Daphné du Maurier was born from the actors Gérald and…
1858 Birthday of DeWolf Hopper, vaudeville comedian and musical star, who appeared in Wang, Hoity-Toity,…
1820 Birthday of Louisa Lane Drew, matriarch of the Drew and Barrymore acting dynasty which…
1901 Sadie Martinot, Guy Bates Post and Junius Brutus Booth play The marriage game. The…
Andrea McArdle and Donna McKechnie, two of Broadway’s most endearing women, who have appeared in…
1918 A stage adaptation of Booth Tarkington’s popular Penrod stories proves a bust. Opening at…
1898 Birthday of one of Broadway’s most endearing performers of the 1920s, Marilyn Miller, whose…
1897 John Drew and Billie Burke (in her Broadway debut) star in the new play,…
1879 The composer Rudolf Friml was born in Prague. He emigrated to the United States…
1903 Opening night of The little PrincessFrances Hodgson Burnett’s play about a child, in the…
1903 In runaways, with a book by Addison Burkhardt and a score by Raymond Hubbell,…
1894 Henrik Ibsen’s American premiere Ghosts, with Ida Jeffries Goodfriend, at the Berkeley Lyceum Theater.…
1889 Playwright and director George S. Kaufman was born in Pittsburgh. Former journalist, Kaufman makes…
1768 Birthday of John Durang, identified by scholars as one of the first American-born professional…
1931 Playwright and producer David Belasco dies in New York. He began his theatrical life…
1854 Birthday of John Philip Sousa, composer of countless marches, who also found time to…
1893 Birthday of the playwright and producer Russel Crouse, whose prodigious output of scripts -…
1907 In The Comet, Alla Nazimova plays a woman who falls in love with her…