1868 Producer, director, and manager Charles Dillingham is born. Dillingham’s dozens of productions include As Good as New, The Last of Mrs. Cheyney, Sunny, Bulldog Drummond, and The Red Mill.
1962 Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s musical Brigadoon is revived by the New York City Center Light Opera Company. Under the direction of Jean Dalrymple, the production plays at City Center with actor Peter Palmer in the role of Tommy Albright.
1971 Happy birthday to Tony Award winner Idina Menzel, who originated the roles of Maureen in Rent, Elphaba in Wicked, and Elizabeth in If/Then, and voices Elsa in the Disney-animated film Frozen.
1985 John Malkovich directs a revival of George Bernard Shaw’s Arms and the Man on Broadway at Circle in the Square. The production, which stars Kevin Kline and Raul Julia, runs for 109 performances.
1996 Tartuffe: Born Again, an updated version of Molière’s Tartuffe by Freyda Thomas, opens at Circle in the Square. It stars John Glover, Alison Fraser, and Jane Krakowski. The production closes less than a month later, after only 25 performances.
1999 The second Broadway version of The Scarlet Pimpernel closes at the Minskoff Theatre. A few months later, the Frank Wildhorn musical returns to New York in a third and scaled-back incarnation at the Neil Simon Theatre.
2013 An Off-Broadway revival of Bertolt Brecht’s The Caucasian Chalk Circle, starring Christopher Lloyd and featuring music by Duncan Sheik, opens at Classic Stage Company. Brian Kulick directs a cast that also includes Mary Testa and Elizabeth A. Davis.
2019 Audra McDonald and Michael Shannon bring Terrence McNally's Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune back to Broadway for its first revival, opening today at the Broadhurst Theatre. McDonald is a diner waitress to Shannon's short order cook that meet for a night of fiery passion that ends up having the possibility of love.
More of Today’s Birthdays: Cornelia Otis Skinner (1901–1979); Benny Goodman (1909–1986); Henry Lascoe (1912–1964); Joseph Stein (1912–2010);. John Heffernan (b. 1934); Stephen Tobolowsky (b. 1951). Ann Hampton Callaway (b. 1958); Tonya Pinkins (b. 1962); Young Jean Lee (b. 1974). Blake Bashoff (b. 1981).
Kristin Chenoweth in Wicked
