Today In Theatre History: JANUARY 15
By Robert Viagas
and Christopher Reichheld and Anne Bradley
15 Jan 2008
1622 Birthday of Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by the nom de plume Moliere (1622-1673), one of France's greatest playwrights, who will go on to write Tartuffe, School for Wives, Scapin, The Misanthrope, The Miser, and many other plays. He will collapse during a performance of his own The Imaginary Invalid and later die.
1879 U.S. premiere of Gilbert & Sullivan's H.M.S. Pinafore at the Standard Theatre, creating a sensation, and inspiring a generation of young writers to try their hands at comic operetta. A key moment in the development of the musical.
1911 Birthday of Cy Feuer, who, in partnership with Ernest H. Martin, will produce Broadway classics Guys and Dolls, Can-Can, The Boy Friend, How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying and Little Me.
1917 Jerome Kern opens his second musical in four days, titled Love o' Mike, it's the story of a man who inspires the adoration of a group of young women. Everything their boyfriends do to sabotage him just makes the girls love him more. Songs, including "It Wasn't My Fault," help boost the show to a 192-performance run.
1919 Just what's going on Up in Mabel's Room? Head to the Eltinge Theatre in New York to see this comedy by Wilson Collison and Otto Harbach. Enid Markey and Hazel Dawn will star for 229 performances. 1923 When the factory-owner's son decides the workers must take over the ailing company, it takes a millionaire fresh from an asylum to bail them out of debt. Yep, Give and Take is a comedy. Aaron Hoffman's farce runs beyond the season. Vivian Tobin, Louis Mann, and Robert Craig are in the cast at the 49th Street Theatre. 1948 With Sid Caesar in the cast, I'd Make Mine Manhattan too. This revue with music by Richard Levine and sketches by Arnold Horwitt will run almost 53 weeks. Hassard Short directs. 1969 Shakespearean scholar and author of What Happens in Hamlet and Shakespeare's Happy Comedies, John Dover Wilson dies in Scotland today. He was 88 years old.
1981 Eva Le Gallienne, at age 82, returns to Broadway to star in To Grandmother's House We Go, which runs 61 performances at the Biltmore Theatre. Her co-star is Shepperd Strudwick.
1982 Opening night of the revue Forbidden Broadway at Palsson's nightclub in New York. Featuring showtune parodies by Gerard Alessandrini, the revue will have numerous editions at various venues over the years, and was still going strong in January 2008.
1983 Shepperd Strudwick dies today, two years to the day after his final Broadway opening, in To Grandmother's House We Go. Other notable productions: Affairs of State, and Christopher Blake. More of Today's Birthdays: Ivor Novello 1893. Chester Hale 1899. Torin Thatcher 1905. Eddie Craven 1909. Cy Feuer 1911. Lloyd Bridges 1913, Thelma Carpenter 1922. Andrea Martin 1947. Mario Van Peebles 1957. Shauna Hicks 1962.
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