1930 A hung jury frees Mae West of obscenity charges for her play, Pleasure Man.

1983 James Earl Jones, playing in Athol Fugard's Master Harold ...and the Boys in Toronto, suffers a detached retina. He will be replaced by Zakes Mokae.

1999 Comic actor Mark Linn-Baker stars in Lee Blessing's one man play, Chesapeake, at the Second Stage space. Max Mayer directs the play, which begins previews tonight and concerns a performance artist's scheme to lay low a right-wing Southern politician — all with the help of a certain retriever.

1999 Another solo-show sets out on a 29-city national tour today: Thirteen years after winning a Best Actress Tony Award for her star turn playing multiple characters in Jane Wagner's The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, actress Lily Tomlin returns to the material. A year later, the production will land on Broadway again.

-- by Daniel Fischer and Ernio Hernandez