1925 Birthday of one of Broadway's all-time greatest leading ladies, . She is nominated for the Tony Award as Best Actress or Featured Actress in a Musical six times, and wins four times, for , , , and . She rises to stardom in a featured role in 's Can-Can and later creates the title role of and originates the role of Roxie Hart in . A dancer all her life, she marries choreographer in 1960. Her final Broadway credit is as artistic adviser on the Tony-winning revue of his work, . She introduces several Broadway standards, including "Whatever Lola Wants" and "If My Friends Could See Me Now."
1931 stars in by . The drama features a woman whose child is not her husband's鈥攁lthough he believes it to be his.
1941 Irish nationalist, poet, and dramatist dies in Zurich at age 59. Always interested in , one of Joyce's earliest publications was an essay on the playwright titled "Ibsen's New Drama." Included among Joyce's many works is one play, Exiles, which he wrote in 1918. In 1959 (Off-Broadway) and 1974 (on Broadway) plays Leopold Bloom in , an adaptation of Joyce's Ulysses by . In 2000, , a musical adaptation of Joyce's short story "The Dead," plays Broadway's Belasco Theatre.
1951 heads the cast of at the Alvin Theatre. Adapted by from 's novel, the drama, depicting the Stalinist purges, wins the Drama Critics' Circle Award.
1976 English actor dies at the age of 53. She played a variety of classic roles and starred in the London production of The Philadelphia Story. In 1962, she won the Tony Award for her portrayal of Hannah Jelkes in .
1984 Brooks Atkinson, longtime drama critic for The New York Times, dies at age 89. Atkinson was the first critic in recorded history to have .
2002 The Fantasticks, the world's longest-running musical, ends its landmark run at the Sullivan Street Playhouse in New York's Greenwich Village after more than 41 years. The final tally: 17,162 performances.
2011 both directs and stars as Lady Bracknell in a Broadway revival of 's , opening at the American Airlines Theatre. The 1895 comedy is produced by , borrowing some elements from Bedford's 2009 production at Ontario's . The cast also includes , , and .
2011 , the powerhouse impresario who, as the founder of the downtown Manhattan theatre complex La MaMa, E.T.C. (short for Experimental Theatre Club), was one of the central figures in the creation of the Off-Off-Broadway movement, dies at age 91. Stewart founded La MaMa in 1961, and remained its director until her death.
2013 A revival of , 's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama of small-town women yearning for what's beyond, opens at the Roundabout Theatre Company's American Airlines Theatre. , , , , and star as some of the women aroused by the arrival of the sexy stranger played by .
2015 Screen stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Ruth Wilson make their Broadway debuts in Nick Payne's two-hander Constellations, which opens today at Broadway's Samuel J. Friedman Theatre courtesy of Manhattan Theatre Club. The metaphysical play centers on Roland and Marianne, one relationship with infinite possibilities across countless timelines.
More of Today's Birthdays: (1905-1992). (1908-1984). Robert Stack (1919-2003). (1924-2011). (b. 1930). (1931-2007). (1934-2019). (b. 1960). (b. 1960). Shonda Rhimes (b. 1970). Orlando Bloom (b. 1977). (b. 1982).
