1947 High Button Shoes, Stephen Longstreet's semi- autobiographical musical based on his book, "The Sisters Liked Them Handsome," opens tonight at the Century Theatre. The music and lyrics are provided by Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn for this show, which gets mixed reviews and runs 727 performances on Broadway. Choreographer Jerome Robbins' famous ballet scene wins him a Tony Award. The cast includes Phil Silvers and Nanette Fabray, who sing, "Papa, Won't You Dance With Me?" The musical would a have a nine month-long run in London beginning in 1948.

1963 Two one-act plays in one bill by Peter Shaffer, The Private Ear and The Public Eye, are on Broadway tonight at the Morosco Theatre. The plays, which deal with shyness, love and infidelity, star Brian Bedford, Geraldine McEwan and Moray Watson and have been transferred from a 1962 London production. Shaffer will go on to write the hit plays Equus and Amadeus.

1986 A revival of Pierre Augustin Beaumarchais' The Marriage of Figaro, as adapted and translated by Richard Nelson, opens on Broadway at the Circle in the Square Theatre. Andrei Serban directs a cast that includes Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Christopher Reeve and Dana Ivey. The production lasts 77 performances before closing Dec. 15.

1997 With one musical theatre piece, New York Rock, already under her belt, musician-artist Yoko Ono is returning to the theatre world in a collaboration with writer/director Ron Destro. Hiroshima, an epic play with music about Japanese families hit by the 1945 atomic bomb, opens at New York's Theatre For The New City today.

--By Sam Maher and Ernio Hernandez