1897 and (in her Broadway debut) are the stars of the new play, My Wife, opening at the Empire Theatre. There are 129 performances.
1897 Actor is born. He creates many memorable stage roles in landmark plays, notably Mr. Antrobus in and James Tyrone in .
1899 Playwright is born in—where else?—Oklahoma. His plays like , , , and , capture the simple life on what used to be frontier America. Green Grow the Lilacs is adapted by and as one of the greatest hits of the American musical theatre,
1916 It's opening night for one of the biggest hits in the history of Broadway's huge Hippodrome Theatre. The extravaganza The Big Show opens a 425-performance run featuring Dixie Gerard, Dippy Diers, and The Metzetti Brothers.
1918 , son of the founder of Lerner stores, is born in New York City. Lerner becomes a Broadway lyricist and collaborates with on such Broadway classics as , , and . Together they also write the score for the Academy Award-winning film Gigi.
1942 Alec Coppel's I Killed the Count opens at the Cort Theatre. The production is staged by Frank Carrington and Agnes Morgan.
1953 A revival of opens at City Center, bringing the number of Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals running simultaneously on Broadway to four. To celebrate the occasion, New York Mayor Vincent R. Impellitteri designates August 31 to September 6 as "Rodgers and Hammerstein Week." The other three Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals also on Broadway at the time are the original productions of , , and . The cast for the five-week limited engagement of Oklahoma! includes as Laurey and as Ado Annie.
1998 Boys' Life, the play that gave playwright a name in the field when it was produced in 1988 at Lincoln Center, receives a 10th anniversary revival at Off-Broadway's Judith Anderson Theatre. The drama, which was nominated for the 1988 Pulitzer Prize, examines three friends on the verge of adulthood as they maneuver their way through the sexual mores of 1980s America.
1999 After they "brought in" 'da Noise and 'da Funk, the bucket drummers of the 1996 Broadway musical return to the New York stage to Keep Bangin'. The new show at Off-Broadway's Players Theatre features the urban percussionists from once again in collaboration with the show's star, . However, this time Glover takes the helm as director.
2011 A revised staging of , , , and 's American folk opera Porgy and Bess—s³Ù²¹°ù°ù¾±²Ô²µ and —opens at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The production later and wins Tony Awards for Best Actress in a Musical (McDonald) and Best Revival of a Musical.
2019 Performances begin at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park for the Public Theater's Public Works' musical adaptation of Hercules, with Jelani Alladin in the title role. co-stars as Meg with as Hades plus memorable turns by Jeff Hiller, , Ramona Keller, , and Rema Webb. The production, directed by Lear deBessonet, also featured over 200 New Yorkers from all five boroughs. Using Disney film’s beloved score——by the film’s composer and lyricist David Zippel, Hercules featured a new book by Kristoffer Diaz and choreography by .
More of Today's Birthdays: DuBose Heyward (1885�1940), (1905�1980), (1905�1997), (1908�1981), (1914�1984), (1924�2003), Thomas L. Miller (1940�2020), Timothy Meyers (1945�1989), (b. 1949), Stephen McKinley Henderson (b. 1949), Jonathan Cake (b. 1967), (b. 1970), (b. 1975).
Watch highlights from Hercules, starring Jelani Alladin and Krysta Rodriguez:
