1849 Birthday of writer Frances Hodgson Burnett, author of several Broadway plays in the early the 20th century, including Little Lord Fauntleroy, The Little Princess, The Pretty Sister of Jose, and That Man and I. Her novel The Secret Garden was adapted as a musical in 1991.
1924 Opening night at the Garrick Theatre for Sidney Howard's drama They Knew What They Wanted, about an elderly winegrower who tries to fool a mail-order bride by sending her the photo of his handsome young foreman. It wins the Pulitzer Prize, runs 414 performances, and is adapted as the musical The Most Happy Fella in 1956.
1929 Actor Raymond Hitchcock dies. He made his first lead appearance in The Yankee Consul at the Tremont Theatre in Boston. He also appeared in Hitchy-Koo, The Sap, and Raymond Hitchcock's Pinwheel.
1934 Birthday of actor, lyricist, and director Martin Charnin, a late-career collaborator of Richard Rodgers on the musicals Two by Two and I Remember Mama. His other works include Annie, Upstairs at O'Neals, Hot Spot, and The First. He begins his career as one of the original Jets in West Side Story.
1936 Opening night of Noël Coward's play Tonight at 8:30, consisting of three one-acts, The Astonished Heart, Hands Across the Sea, and Red Peppers. Coward stars with Gertrude Lawrence. The production runs 118 performances at the National Theatre.
1938 Clifford Odets writes about a dentist in the throes of what will later be called a midlife crisis in the drama Rocket to the Moon. It runs 131 performances at the Belasco and Windsor Theatres.
1940 The first date many legitimate theatres begin Sunday performances. In the past, the Winter Garden, the Selwyn, and the Century had presented Sunday evening variety shows, but these were special vaudeville programs.
1942 Eleven years after creating the role, Paul Muni again is the Counsellor-at-Law. Elmer Rice wrote and stages the play, which runs more than 32 weeks.
1950 "Luck Be a Lady Tonight" as Frank Loesser's Guys and Dolls opens at the Forty-Sixth Street Theatre. George S. Kaufman directs and Michael Kidd choreographs the Abe Burrows, Jo Swerling, and Loesser musical based on Damon Runyan's stories. Sam Levene is Nathan Detroit, co-starring with Robert Alda (father of Alan Alda), Isabel Bigley, Vivian Blaine, and Stubby Kaye. The show gets rave reviews and runs for a total of 1,200 performances.
1951 Audrey Hepburn stars in Anita Loos' adaptation of Colette's Gigi, about the training of a beautiful young courtesan. The show runs 219 performances at the Fulton Theatre, and is adapted as a film musical of the same title in 1958, with Leslie Caron in Hepburn's role.
1961 Actor Ruth Chatterton dies at age 67. Her stage appearances included The Changelings and Mary Rose.
1975 Richard Peaslee writes the score to a musical adaptation of Giovanni Boccaccio's The Decameron, called, for some reason, Boccaccio. It runs just seven performances at the Edison Theatre, despite the presence of Armand Assante as Masetto.
1986 Smile, a musical adaptation of the film about backstage emotions at a beauty pageant, opens at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre. Partly owing to the presence of Marvin Hamlisch as composer and Howard Ashman as lyricist-librettist, the TV series 60 Minutes chronicles its tryouts, previews, and opening night. Unfortunately, the production closes after just 48 performances. Happy ending: Ashman likes leading lady Jodi Benson so much, he helps her get the role of Ariel the mermaid in the Disney animated film blockbuster The Little Mermaid, for which he supplies lyrics.
1994 With a stroke of the keyboard, Broadway enters the internet age as Playbill On-Line launches its new online theatre news service.
1996 Opening night for the Broadway production of Juan Darien, with music by Elliot Goldenthal, which had previously been seen Off-Off-Broadway and Off-Broadway. The production also marks the Broadway debut of director/designer Julie Taymor, whose masks, puppets, and innovative stage business are a sensation, even if the show itself runs just 49 performances at the Vivian Beaumont Theater. Less than a year later, Taymor takes Broadway by storm with her The Lion King, using many of the same techniques.
1997 In a solo show written and directed by Charles Messina, Paul Goncalves portrays Queen rocker Freddie Mercury awakening from death with a new lease on life. In Mercury: The Afterlife And Times of a Rock God, the singer struggles to make sense of his fate and realizes that fame, fortune, and talent aren't enough for true peace of mind. "Beyond the darkness of his fear," reads the press release, "shines a light far brighter than the star he was on earth." It runs 216 performances at the Sanford Meisner Theatre.
2011 The West End transfer of the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of Matilda The Musical, first seen at Stratford-upon-Avon in November 2010, opens at the Cambridge Theatre. Based on the Roald Dahl novel, the musical features a book by playwright Dennis Kelly; music and lyrics by Australian comedian, musician, and composer Tim Minchin; and direction by Matthew Warchus. The production wins a record seven Olivier Awards, including Best Actor in a Musical for Bertie Carvel's performance as Miss Trunchbull, and Best Actress in a Musical for the four girls who share the title role. Matilda opens on Broadway in 2013.
2013 Repertory productions of Harold Pinter's No Man's Land and Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, starring Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart, open on Broadway at the Cort Theatre. Directed by Sean Mathias, the cast also includes Billy Crudup and Shuler Hensley.
2016 Florence Henderson, who starred on Broadway before making her mark on television as the ever-patient mom on the sitcom The Brady Bunch, dies at age 82. She appeared on Broadway in the musicals Wish You Were Here, Fanny, and The Girl Who Came to Supper, and also played the role of Laurey in the national tour of Oklahoma!
2019 Signature Theatre's Off-Broadway revival of The Young Man from Atlanta, Horton Foote's Pulitzer Prize–winning drama, officially opens. Directed by Michael Wilson, the production stars Tony nominee Kristine Nielsen (Gary) and Emmy nominee Aidan Quinn (Elementary).
2019 Theatre For a New Audience's production of Fefu and Her Friends, by the late María Irene Fornés, officially opens at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center in Brooklyn. Directed by Obie Award winner Lileana Blain-Cruz, the production sees the audience split up into four groups (as the play is written), and move around the auditorium where they each experience the story in a different setting and in a different order.
More of Today's Birthdays: Cathleen Nesbitt (1889-1982). Garson Kanin (1912-1999). Geraldine Fitzgerald (1913-2005). Sasson Gabay (b. 1947). Ruben Santiago-Hudson (b. 1956). Sarah Hyland (b. 1990).
