1905 Birthday of playwright Lillian Hellman, who writes The Children’s Hour, The Little Foxes, Another Part of the Forest, Watch on the Rhine, and the book to the musical Candide.
1906 See-See, described by its authors as a “comic Chinese opera,” opens at the Prince of Wales’s Theatre in London. The musical boasts a book by Charles Brookfield and a score by Sidney Jones and Adrian Ross. Denise Osme performs the title role. The production runs 152 performances.
1910 In a strike against racial prejudice, Florenz Ziegfeld opens the Ziegfeld Follies of 1910 with actor Bert Williams as co-star, marking the first time white and black entertainers have appeared on stage together in a major Broadway production.
1929 The musical revue Hot Chocolates opens a 219-performance run at the Hudson Theatre, featuring some of the great stars of Harlem nightclubs, including the Broadway debut of Louis Armstrong, and a score by Fats Waller, Harry Brooks, and Andy Razaf.
1970 Birthday of composer and lyricist Jason Robert Brown, who writes the Tony Award-winning scores for the musicals Parade and The Bridges of Madison County. Other works include the musicals The Last Five Years, 13, and Honeymoon in Vegas.
1984 The first Broadway revival of Noël Coward‘s Design for Living opens at the Circle in the Square Theatre for a run of 245 performances. Directed by George C. Scott, it stars Jill Clayburgh, Raul Julia, and Frank Langella.
1989 A musical version of Death of a Salesman? That’s what the Jewish boy in The Loman Family Picnic dreams of writing while his family stresses about his bar mitzvah. The play by Donald Margulies opens at Manhattan Theatre Club‘s City Center Stage 2.
2000 Composer-lyricist-librettist Kirsten Childs‘ musical about Viceca “Bubbly” Stanton, The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin, gets its world premiere at Playwrights Horizons. Wilfredo Medina directs and A.C. Ciulla choreographs the musical memoir starring LaChanze.
2003 Bounce, the first musical collaboration between composer Stephen Sondheim and director Hal Prince in more than two decades, opens a tryout at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre. It moves on to Washington D.C. and plays out a limited run without moving to New York. In 2008, John Doyle directs a revised version of the musical at Off-Broadway’s Public Theater under the title Road Show.
2004 The Tony-winning musical Thoroughly Modern Millie closes after 903 performances at the Marquis Theatre.
2012 The York Theatre Company presents the first New York City revival of the 1989 Off-Broadway revue Closer Than Ever—featuring the lyrics of Richard Maltby Jr. and the music of David Shire—at The York Theatre at Saint Peter’s. Directed by Maltby, the production stars Jenn Colella, George Dvorsky, Christiane Noll, and Sal Viviano. Originally announced for a limited run through July 14, the critically acclaimed production extends three times and runs 150 performances.
More of Today’s Birthdays Ellis Rabb 1930. Olympia Dukakis 1931. Danny Aiello 1933. John Mahoney 1940. John Goodman 1952. Chuck Wagner 1958. Josh Lucas 1971.
Watch highlights from the 2013 Off-Broadway revival of Jason Robert Brown’s The Last Five Years:
