1885 Birthday of , producer of many Broadway plays and comedies during a 30-year career, including the original , , , , and .
1925 have made an industry out of the memory of a local dead hero. When that hero turns up suffering from amnesia, they convince him to disappear again. The Theatre Guild performance of and 's play earns 42 showings.
1932 Birthday of , author of librettos to musicals , , , and , and of his own plays, including .
1936 and prove at the Booth Theatre. , , and are among the zany household.
1945 stars as at the Coronet Theatre. , married to Field, stages his own work.
1950 The gap in social classes always comes down to the Lace on Her Petticoat. The play set in turn-of-the-century Scotland runs at London's Ambassadors Theatre.
1966 "Rather than subject the drama critics and the theater-going public鈥攚ho invested $1-million in advance ticket sales鈥攖o an excruciatingly boring evening," producer closes the musical during previews. The production starred as Jeff, alongside in her not quite Broadway debut as Holly Golightly.
1976 plays a con man in 's Gold Rush-era comedy , based on 's Volpone. The supporting cast includes , , , and Scott's wife, . It plays at the Broadhurst Theatre.
1978 plays a middle-aged woman who finds a second life on the dance floor in 's musical , based on Queen of the Stardust Ballroom. It runs at the Majestic Theatre.
1989 's , which recounts the life of in his own words, opens at the Booth Theatre. The writer is played , who wins a Tony Award.
1997 Allison Janney, Brittany Murphy, Anthony LaPaglia, and Stephen Spinella star in a revival of Arthur Miller's A View From the Bridge at Criterion Center Stage Right for a limited run before moving to the Neil Simon Theatre on Broadway in the same season. The Michael Mayer-helmed production scores two Tonys: Best Revival of a Play and Best Actor for LaPaglia.
1999 , the legendary stage and screen star of , , The Sound of Music, and Mary Poppins, files a medical malpractice lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. She underwent an allegedly botched throat surgery in 1997 and, as a result, says she is no longer able to sing.
2006 A revival of the musical The Apple Tree opens at Roundabout's Studio 54, based on the 2005 New York City Center Encores! presentation. Kristin Chenoweth, Brian D'Arcy James, Marc Kudisch, and more star, with direction by Gary Griffin.
2008 DreamWorks Pictures makes its first foray into Broadway producing as the stage adaptation of its popular animated film Shrek opens at the Broadway Theatre. stars as the green ogre of the title, as the princess he saves, and as his donkey sidekick. directs the show, which has music by and book and lyrics by Pulitzer Prize winner .
2011 , a peppy musical by and that transposes the action of the Greek classic Lysistrata from the Peleponnesian Wars to the world of college basketball, opens on Broadway at the Walter Kerr Theatre. directs a cast including , , , , and .
More of Today's Birthdays: (1883鈥�1950), (1915鈥�1978), (1935鈥�1991), (1936鈥�2009), (1946鈥�2016), (b. 1946), Celia Weston (b. 1951), (b. 1963), Eric Anderson (b. 1972), (b. 1976), Vanessa Hudgens (b. 1988)
Watch highlights from the 2011 Broadway musical Lysistrata Jones:
