Today In Theatre History: MAY 16
By Anne Bradley
and Ernio Hernandez
16 May 2008
1946 "No you can't get a man with a gun," but when you're Ethel Merman you can sure try. She's the star of Rodgers & Hammerstein's production of Annie Get Your Gun. (You read that write; R&H were the producers, not the composers.) Irving Berlin supplies the words and music for this book by Herbert and Dorothy Fields. Ray Middleton costars as Frank Butler, the fellow sharpshooter Annie gets in the end. There will be 1,147 performances. Bernadette Peters and Tom Wopat will costar in a 1999 Broadway revival.
1952 Among the New Faces of 1952, a revue staged by John Murray, are Eartha Kitt, Ronny Graham, Alice Ghostley, and Carol Lawrence. The will be 365 performances at Broadway's Royale Theatre. 1962 At New York City Center Jean Dalrymple begins a program of musical revivals. Tonight's opening is Can-Can. 1969 Sir Lewis Casson, actor-director-producer died today at the age of 93. He was the husband of Dame Sybil Thorndike. 1985 Jerry Zaks directs Christopher Durang's The Marriage of Bette and Boo at Off-Broadway's The Public/Newman Theatre. Joan Allen, Mercedes Ruehl and Olympia Dukakis star in this dysfunctional matrimony comedy in which Durang himself appears. 1999 Rebecca Gilman's new play, Spinning Into Butter, opens at Chicago's Goodman Studio tonight. After extending three times, the play will move on to Lincoln Center Theatre's Off-Broadway venue, the Mitzi Newhouse Theatre, June 29, 2000 and officially open July 26 for a run through Sept. 16. 2001 Hours after struggling musical Jane Eyre announces its closing, singer Alanis Morrissette steps forward and writes a check to keep the show open, in hopes that it will win some life-saving awards to buck the Producers tide. Star Marla Schaffel wins the Drama Desk Award as Best Actress in a Musical a few days later, but when the show gets shut out of the Tony Awards, it plays its final performance June 10.
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