1909 Director Elia Kazan is born. On Broadway, he directs the original productions of A Streetcar Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Death of a Salesman, All My Sons, and J.B., winning Tony Awards for the last three. Kazan also enjoys success directing films, winning Academy Awards for Gentleman's Agreement and On the Waterfront, as well as an honorary Oscar in 1999.
1921 The first stage adaptation of the Edgar Rice Burroughs novel Tarzan of the Apes is a hit at the Broadhurst Theatre, adapted by namesake George Broadhurst himself and starring Ronald Adair as Tarzan, Alfred Arno as Kerchak, and Ethel Dwyer as Jane Porter.
1928 Sophie Treadwell's expressionist drama Machinal opens on Broadway at the Plymouth Theatre. The play is based on the case of Ruth Snyder, who was executed at Sing Sing in January 1928 for the murder of her husband. Zita Johann stars, and the cast also includes the Broadway debut of a young actor named Clark Gable.
1946 Director Jerry Zaks is born. Specializing in comedies and musicals, Zaks is a four-time Tony Award winner for his work on The House of Blue Leaves, Lend Me a Tenor, Six Degrees of Separation, and the 1992 revival of Guys and Dolls.
1949 Mae West stars in a hit revival of her own play, Diamond Lil, for a 182-performance run at the Plymouth Theatre.
1999 Epic Proportions, a zany comedy by Larry Coen and David Crane, begins performances at Broadway's Helen Hayes Theatre. The show about the filming of an epic motion picture features Tony Award winner Kristin Chenoweth and a number of other actors known for their comedic work: Alan Tudyk, Ruth Williamson, Ross Lehman, and Richard B. Shull, who passes away during the show's brief run. Jerry Zaks directs.
2000 Gerard Alessandrini overhauls Forbidden Broadway Cleans Up Its Act! to become Forbidden Broadway 2001: A Spoof Odyssey. The revue now parodies such new Broadway entries as Aida, Swing!, The Music Man, and Seussical.
2001 Performances begin for the Off-Broadway musical The Spitfire Grill at The Duke on 42nd. Starring Liz Callaway, Garrett Long, and Phyllis Somerville, the show by James Valcq and Fred Alley previously won the 2001 Richard Rodgers Production Award.
2008 Rent ends its 12-year run at the Nederlander Theatre. The Pulitzer Prize-winning and Tony Award-winning rock musical by the late lyricist-librettist-composer Jonathan Larson played 5,123 performances and 16 previews.
2008 The Quarrel, a battle of faith and tolerance, officially opens Off-Broadway at the DR2. Adapted by David Brandes and Joseph Telushkin from Chaim Grade's short story "My Quarrel with Hersh Rasseyner," The Quarrel follows the accidental meeting of two estranged friends, one who has become an Orthodox rabbi, the other a secular writer.
2013 A User's Guide to Hell, featuring Bernard Madoff, by Tony and Pulitzer Prize nominee Lee Blessing, opens at Atlantic Theater Company's Stage II. Directed by Michole Biancosino, the cast features Edward James Hyland as Madoff and David Deblinger as Verge. Eric Sutton and Polly Lee played residents of hell.
2016 The world premiere of the Chad Beguelin–Bob Martin–Matthew Sklar musical comedy The Prom opens at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta. Casey Nicholaw directs and choreographs a cast featuring Brooks Ashmanskas, Beth Leavel, Christopher Sieber, Anna Grace Barlow, Caitlin Kinnunen, Martin Moran, Angie Schworer, Courtenay Collins, and Josh Lamon. The show moves north, with most of the original cast intact, to Broadway's Longacre Theatre in 2018.
More of Today's Birthdays Anthony Quayle (1913–1989), Lauren Jones (b. 1942), Michael McCarty (1946–2014), Ted Chapin (b. 1950), Michael Emerson (b. 1954), Michael Feinstein (b. 1956), J. Smith-Cameron (b. 1957)
Watch members of the original cast of Rent talk about the musical at a 2016 BroadwayCon panel:
