1950 Joshua Logan transports the action of Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard to 19th century Louisiana for his adaptation, The Wisteria Trees. It runs at the Martin Beck Theatre.
1951 Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II's The King and I dances into the St. James Theatre in New York. An English governess (Gertrude Lawrence) is hired to tutor the prince and princesses of Siam, but also finds a willing student and friend in the King (Yul Brynner). Jerome Robbins choreographs. There are 1,246 performances.
1956 Earle Hyman is Mister Johnson, a Nigerian uncomfortable with the imposed British culture. Norman Rosten adapts Joyce Cary's novel. It runs at the Martin Beck Theatre.
1966 It's a Bird…It's a Plane...It's Superman soars at the Alvin Theatre in New York. The musical by David Newman, Robert Benton, Lee Adams, and Charles Strouse stars Bob Holiday in the title role with Patricia Marand as Lois. Harold Prince stages.
1976 Samuel Beckett directs his play Waiting for Godot in German at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, with actors from Berlin's Schiller Theatre.
1979 Bedroom Farce opens at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre. The Alan Ayckbourn play, directed by Ayckbourn and Peter Hall, stars Polly Adams, Delia Lindsay, Susan Littler, Stephen Moore, Derek Newark, Michael Stroud, Joan Hickson, and Michael Gough. The latter two performers win Tonys for their performances.
1981 John Kander and Fred Ebb turn the Michael Kanin and Ring Lardner Jr. film, Woman of the Year, which starred Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, into a musical. Woman of the Year opens at the Palace Theatre and stars Lauren Bacall and Harry Guardino.
1984 Dustin Hoffman plays Willy Loman in a Broadway revival of Death of a Salesman, opposite John Malkovich as Biff.
1992 Herb Gardner's drama of a son's feelings about his harsh Jewish father opens on Broadway at the Royale Theatre. Conversations With My Father stars Tony Shalhoub, Judd Hirsch, and David Margulies. It closes nearly a year later on March 14, 1993.
2001 The Invention of Love, Tom Stoppard's drama about British poet A.E. Housman, opens on Broadway at the Lyceum Theatre. Robert Sean Leonard and Richard Easton play the poet at different ages, and both win Tony Awards for their performances.
2004 Actors' Equity Association celebrates its 90th anniversary with a bash at The Players Club.
2007 Vanessa Redgrave stars in the solo show adaptation of Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking at the Booth Theatre. David Hare directs the play, which explores the author's shock, denial, and ultimate acceptance following family tragedy.
2009 Tovah Feldshuh plays a Polish woman who hides a group of Jews from the Nazis during World War II in a transfer of the Off-Broadway hit, Irena's Vow. Directed by Michael Parva, Dan Gordon's play opens on Broadway at the Walter Kerr Theatre.
2012 The musical Newsies, based on the 1992 Disney film, opens on Broadway at the Nederlander Theatre. Jeremy Jordan stars as Jack Kelly, the charismatic newsboy who leads a strike against newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer. The production wins Tony Awards for Alan Menken and Jack Feldman's score, and for Christopher Gattelli's choreography. Though initially announced as a 101-performance limited engagement, it goes on to run for 1,004 performances.
2018 Glenda Jackson, Laurie Metcalf, and Alison Pill star in the Broadway premiere of Edward Albee's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Three Tall Women at the Golden Theatre. Joe Mantello directs the play, which had its New York premiere in 1994 at Off-Broadway's Vineyard Theatre. Jackson and Metcalf both win Tony Awards for their performances.
Today's Birthdays: Lawrence Grossmith (1877-1944), Albert Von Tilzer (1878-1956), Derek Oldham (1887-1968), Howard Lindsay (1889-1968), Frank Merlin (1893-1968), Pearl Bailey (1918-1990), Eileen Heckart (1919-2001), Philip Locke (b. 1928), Elizabeth I. McCann (b. 1931), Eric Idle (b. 1943), Jeffrey Horowitz (b. 1949), Megan Hilty (b. 1981)
