1882 Birth of French playwright , author of , , , , and .
1891 Birth of comedian Fanny Borach, better known as , star of the Ziegfeld Follies, whose shtick consists mainly of making fun of her own looks. Her enduring "Baby Snooks" persona carries over to a radio career in the 1930s. Her signature tune is the wistful "My Man." Her life serves as the basis for the musical .
1894 Opening night for 's popular operetta, Rob Roy.
1932 makes her Broadway debut in 's at the Biltmore Theatre.
1936 and (or is that Ethel Merman and Jimmy Durante?) star in the musical !, memorable mainly for the PR battle in which both stars demand top billing. Management eventually compromises by crisscrossing their names on the marquee of the Alvin Theatre. It runs 183 performances (with settling for third billing).
1941 Cole Porter's musical opens at the Imperial Theatre. It is the first chance that has to prove himself as a leading man. His co-stars for the evening include , , and . takes over for Danny Kaye during the run of the show, which is 547 performances. A film version is released in 1943.
1946 After a seven-year WWII delay, No毛l Coward's semi-autobiographical play Present Laughter premieres today at Broadway's Plymouth Theatre, starring frequent Coward player Clifton Webb a narcassistic actor in the throws of a mid-life crisis. The work will go on to become a Broadway favorite, receiving revivals in 1958 (starring Coward himself), 1982, 1996, 2010, and 2017.
1952 Audiences are kept on the edge of their seats as a husband hires a man to kill his wife in , opening at the Plymouth Theatre for a 552-performance run.
1958 and star in ' , opening at the Plymouth Theatre. The subject of the play is sex and marriage. is also in the cast.
1960 stars in ' Sleeping Beauty-inspired comedy , opening at the Music Box Theatre. Also in the cast are and . Incidental music is by .
1967 Hair opens at the Astor Library, the new home for 's . This is the first time the company charges admission for one of their shows, although the ticket price is only $2.50. The show , stopping off first at a discotheque on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The Broadway run racks up 1,742 performances.
1977 After a calamitous tryout tour, the and musical opens at the Majestic Theatre. is in the lead role, which wins her the 1978 Tony Award as Best Actress in a Musical (she had won previously in 1956 for Kander and Ebb's Flora, The Red Menace, and received an honorary Tony in 1974). The story of a nightclub singer recalling her rocky romantic and professional life will come to look more like autobiography as the years roll on. The show runs 233 performances.
1984 in San Diego, California suffers its second arson fire in six years. This one costs the theatre $500,000.
2002 plays the title role in Debbie Does Dallas, a musical based on the pornographic film of the same name. Following a sold-out engagement at the summer 2002 New York International Fringe Festival, the naughty tuner begins a regular Off-Broadway run at the Jane Street Theatre. It continues through February 2003.
2003 After many other acting teams competed for the role, and open on Broadway in 's two-person comedy, . The play is about an elderly woman whose life in renewed when she begins taking dance lessons. Unfortunately the show is panned and fails to run even as long as the title, closing after just 30 performances.
2009 , the 1947 show-tune-packed musical about an Irishman and his daughter who come to America on a magical quest, opens in a Broadway revival starring , , , , , and . The production at the St. James Theatre is the first Broadway revival of the classic // show since 1960.
2012 Due to Hurricane Sandy and the suspension of the New York City mass transit system, all Broadway shows are canceled this evening. Performances were also canceled on October 28, and do not resume until October 31.
2015 makes her Broadway debut in the Roundabout Theatre Company's Broadway revival of at Studio 54. The cast also includes , , and .
More of Today's Birthdays: (1899鈥�1972). (1929鈥�1991). (b. 1945). (b. 1946). (b. 1947). (b. 1967). Gabrielle Union-Wade (b. 1972). Ben Foster (b. 1980).
