1928 Birthday of playwright Edward Albee, who writes Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?; The Goat, Or Who Is Sylvia?; and Pulitzer winners A Delicate Balance, Seascape, and Three Tall Women.
1946 Birthday of actor and singer Liza Minnelli, star of Cabaret on film, and Broadway musicals including The Act, The Rink, and Flora, the Red Menace, among many other projects.
1964 Ann Jellicoe provides a new translation of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull. Tony Richardson directs Vanessa Redgrave and Peggy Ashcroft in the London production.
1964 But For Whom Charlie starring Ralph Meeker opens at the ANTA Washington Square Theatre. S. N. Behrman's comedy about a man trying to pry himself away from a domineering father runs 47 performances.
1971 In the wings after his major number in 70, Girls, 70, comedian David Burns dies of a heart attack.
1987 Jean Valjean begins his years of hiding from Javert as Les Misérables opens on Broadway starring Colm Wilkinson and Terrence Mann. The adaptation of the classic Victor Hugo novel features a book by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg, music by Schönberg, and lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer. Trevor Nunn stages. It runs for 6,680 performances, and for a time becomes the second longest-running show in Broadway history.
1998 The hills are revived! A new production of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II's 1959 musical The Sound Of Music opens on Broadway at the Martin Beck Theatre. Rebecca Luker stars as the problem-to-be-solved Maria and Michael Siberry as the Captain with a flock of children.
2013 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, Simon Stephens' stage adaptation of Mark Haddon's novel of the same name, opens at London's Apollo Theatre. The production, directed by Marianne Elliott and starring Luke Treadaway, originally premiered at the National Theatre's Cottesloe Theatre in 2012. It wins seven Olivier Awards, including Best New Play. The following year, the production transfers to Broadway, where it wins the Tony Award for Best Play.
2017 Come From Away, a musical that explores the lasting connection forged between a group of travelers whose planes were diverted to a small Newfoundland town during the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, opens on Broadway at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre. The show is written by husband-and-wife team Irene Sankoff and David Hein, who make their Broadway debuts with the production.
2020 The night that pop musical sensation SIX is set to open on Broadway, New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo announces that all Broadway theatres will shut down, effective immediately. Initially intended to last for one month, the shutdown instead extends through the first half of 2021.
More of Today's Birthdays: George White (1892-1968). Roger L. Stevens (1910-1998). Gordon MacRae (1921-1986). Courtney B. Vance (b. 1960). Matthew Murphy (b. 1986).
