1893 Popular and prolific playwright and producer S.N. Behrman (1893-1973) is born today. Among his plays will be Amphitryon '38, Jacobowsky and the Colonel, No Time for Comedy and the book to the musical Fanny. As a principal in The Playwrights Company, he co-produced many works by his fellow authors from 1938 to 1963.

1947 Bowing to pressure from HUAC, the Actor's Equity council reiterates its stand against communism today.

1970 At today's matinee, Hello, Dolly! surpasses My Fair Lady as the longest-running Broadway musical in history. A celebration at Sardi's follows the show.

1973 Playwright S. N. Behrman dies today, on his 80th birthday. See 1893 above.

1980 Harold Clurman dies today at age 78. Shows he directed include Awake and Sing!, Member of the Wedding, Tiger at the Gates, Waltz of the Toreadors and Bus Stop. Clurman was also a drama critic for the New Republic and The Nation.

1998 Trinity Rep of Providence, Rhode Island opens its season with Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's classic musical The Threepenny Opera. The production, directed by Alan MacVey, takes place in the London of tomorrow, at the coronation of King William V. Ellen McLaughlin, of Tony Kushner's Angels in America fame, stars in the play.

2001 Brooke Shields hosts the tenth annual "Broadway on Broadway" concert in Times Square, featuring songs from recent hit The Producers, and the then-previewing Urinetown. It's the last light-hearted event in the crossroads for some time, as news events of two days hence were about to overwhelm the city.

2004 The musical version of Alice Walker's The Color Purple has its world premiere at the Alliance Theatre, starring LaChanze.

2004 Also today, Mandy Patinkin and the chorus girls of 42nd Street are on hand to cut the ribbon for Dodger Stages, a complex of five new Off-Broadway theatres (formerly a multiplex cinema) just west of the Times Square theatre district on 50th Street.

2009 First season debut of the TV series "Glee," about life among high school theatre and music students. The series stars Lea Michele (Spring Awakening) and Matthew Morrison (Light in the Piazza), and will go on to feature many Broadway stars as guests.

More of Today's Birthdays: Billy Rose 1899. Joseph E. Levine 1905. John Drew Colt 1913. Cliff Robertson 1925. Sylvia Miles 1932. Topol 1935. Tom Wopat 1951. Edward Hibbert 1955.