PLAYBILL VAULT'S Today in Theatre History: JULY 24

By David Gewirtzman
and Ernio Hernandez, Doug Nevin and Robert Viagas
24 Jul 2012

1920 Producer Alexander H. Cohen, known for bringing quality plays to Broadway for six decades, is born today. Lastly represented on Broadway by the Noel Coward play, Waiting in the Wings, starring Lauren Bacall and Rosemary Harris, he will produce 101 Broadway shows, including the 1964 Hamlet starring Richard Burton, Harold Pinter’s drama The Homecoming, Peter Brook’s Tony Award-winning La Tragedie De Carmen, James Joyce's Ulysses in Nighttown starring Zero Mostel, Dario Fo's Accidental Death of an Anarchist, Long Day's Journey Into Night and Ah, Wilderness!, both starring Jason Robards and Colleen Dewhurst. He will live to age 79.

1985 Film buffs will be interested to know that up until this day in 1985, Tony-winner Mandy Patinkin was to star opposite Meryl Streep in the Mike Nichols film Heartburn. After this one day of shooting, however, Patinkin is replaced on the project by Academy Award-winner Jack Nicholson. The Evita star's future film credits will include 1987's "The Princess Bride" and 1990's "Dick Tracy." He will return to Broadway in fall 1998 with his one-man show Mamaloshen.

1996 Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt's musical The Fantasticks, which opened Off-Broadway May 3, 1960 plays its 15,000th performance. The story about two young neighbors whose stars are crossed purposely by their fathers' fake feuding runs at the Sullivan Street Playhouse in New York City's Greenwich Village. It will close in January 2002.

1997 Following a sold-out limited run at Greenwich House, Douglas Carter Beane's comedy, As Bees in Honey Drown, begins a commercial Off-Broadway run today at the Lucille Lortel Theatre. Although Bo Foxworth has taken over the lead role from Josh Hamilton, who must leave to honor a film commitment, most of the cast, including J. Smith-Cameron, T. Scott Cunningham, Sandra Daley, and Mark Nelson, remains intact.

2001 Mike Nichols' starry production of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull begins performances at Central Park's Delacorte Theatre. Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline head the cast as Arkadina and Trigorin. Also in the cast are Marcia Gay Harden as Masha, Natalie Portman as Nina, Christopher Walken as Sorin, Philip Seymour Hoffman as Konstantin, John Goodman as Shamrayev, Debra Monk as Polina, Stephen Spinella as Medvedyev and Larry Pine as Dorn.

2011 Jane White, a stage veteran who created the role of Queen Aggravain in Once Upon a Mattress, dies at age 88. Ms. White, a New York City native who grew up in the Sugar Hill section of Harlem and attended Smith College and the New School, also appeared on Broadway in Strange Fruit, Take a Giant Step and the 2001 revival of Follies.

More of Today's Birthdays: William Gillette 1853. Lord Dunsany 1878. Chris Sarandon 1942. Kristin Chenoweth 1968.