1969 A New York Drama Desk symposium occurs today with Edward Albee defending the intentionally altered production of his play Tiny Alice at the ANTA Theatre. The original production, directed by William Alan Schneider in 1964, starring Irene Worth and John Gielgud, had taken certain creative liberties the playwright did not agree with. Ball was in the audience when Albee's remark about changing the playwright's intentions in a production was made. "A fine line," Albee says, "exists between creative interpretation and usurpation."
1974 Bernadette Peters and Robert Preston give "two of the finest performances of the season," according to the Post. They opened tonight in the David Merrick produced musical about the silent film era, Mack and Mabel. Jerry Herman wrote songs and lyrics, Gower Champion staged, Michael Stewart wrote the book, and stars Peters and Preston are given rave reviews, but despite all this, the production runs only 65 performances at the Majestic Theatre.
1977 The Gin Game by D.L. Coburn opens tonight at the John Golden Theatre. The play, which was directed by Mike Nichols, is about a frustrated couple -- Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy -- in a nursing home who find themselves playing a not-too-friendly game of cards. The show will run 517 performances before Cronyn and Tandy will reprise their roles in the London production in 1979, which runs for eight weeks.
1993 Agnes DeMille, 88, died today. The niece of Cecil B. DeMille, she spent much of her life as a self-characterized "storyteller", choreographing such Broadway classics as Oklahoma!, Carousel, and Paint Your Wagon.
1998 Margaret Edson's cancer drama Wit opens its Off Broadway run at the MCC Theatre. The play which focuses on a woman's struggle with fourth-stage ovarian cancer will win the year's Pulitzer Prize Award for Drama. Derek Anson Jones directs star Kathleen Chalfant in the show that will run at the theatre through Dec. 13 and then move to OB?s Union Square Theatre Jan. 7, 1999 and will play 75 performances at MCC and 545 performances at the Union Square. --By Sam Maher and Ernio Hernandez
