Today In Theatre History: NOVEMBER 11
By Robert Viagas
and Sam Maher, Steve Luber and Anne Bradley
11 Nov 2008
1872 Birthday of Maude Adams (1872-1953), Broadway's first Peter Pan, who originated the role in 1904, and returned at least three times through 1915.
1918 Birthday of Stubby Kaye (1918-1997), rotund character actor who memorably originated the roles of Nicely-Nicely Johnson in Guys and Dolls and Marryin; Sam in Li'l Abner.
1924 Desire Under the Elms opens a run of 208 performances at the Greenwich Village Theatre, as Walter Huston, Charles Ellis and Mary Morris are featured in this Eugene O'Neill play. 1937 The actors play in street clothes against an almost bare, brick backdrop in a production of William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, which opens tonight at the Mercury Theatre. The production proves especially popular with the younger audiences because they "rejoiced over this bizarre business because it was in fashion," reports Burns Mantle in his "The Best Plays of 1937-1938". Playing Brutus is a young Orson Welles, also the producer and director. The production runs almost five months, racking up 157 performances.
1941 Maurice Evans and Judith Anderson open a production of Macbeth at the National Theatre that achieves a run of 131 performances, a Broadway record for the play.
1943 The songwriting team of Lerner & Loewe make their Broadway debut with a now-forgotten musical, What's Up?, which stars Jimmy Savo and was directed by George Balanchine. It runs just 63 performances at the National Theatre. But the team goes on to write Brigadoon, Camelot and My Fair Lady, among other shows.
1958 French import La Plume De Ma Tante opens at the Royale Theatre. The title makes no sense -- which is exactly the point of this madcap revue, plumed by Robert Dhery.
1963 Christopher Plummer stars as a Hitler-like man who goes from nothing to dictatorial power, in the U.S. premiere of Bertolt Brecht's The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui. Despite Direction by Tony Richardson, incidential music by Jule Styne, and an impressive gathering of supporting talent, the production expires after just 8 performances at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre.
1964 Luv will be in the air for 901 performances of Murray Schisgal's satire. The original cast includes Alan Arkin, Eli Wallach, and Anne Jackson directed by Mike Nichols.
1985 The Golden Land, a revue recalling the golden days of the Yiddish theatre, opens at the Second Avenue Theatre and will run for 277 performances.
1990 Nigel Hawthorne weeps on stage and goes on to win a Tony Award for his performance as "Chronicles of Narnia" author C.S. Lewis in the drama Shadowlands, opposite Jan Alexander. It runs 169 performances at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre.
2000 Comic actress Lily Tomlin, still seeking answers to meaning in human existence, brings her 1985 solo hit, Jane Wagner's The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, back to Broadway tonight. Wagner re-approaches the show with a fresh eye in anticipation of the new millennium, according to a statement. In it, Tomlin portrays a teen punk, a wise bag lady, hookers, a fitness freak, a husband, a lesbian editor and others. The show will run 184 performances.
2001 Times Square's legendary "Polish Tea Room" (formally the Edison Cafe) is the setting for Neil Simon's latest comedy, 45 Seconds From Broadway, which has Lewis J. Stadlen, Judith Blazer and Marian Seldes popping off lots of theatrical insider jokes. Nevertheless, it stays just 73 performances at the Richard Rodgers Theatre, which is just across the street from the Edison's back door.
2003 Louis LaRusso II, the Tony-nominated playwright who chronicled life in Hoboken, NJ, in plays like Lamppost Reunion, dies today at age 67.
2004 New York sees a rare Tennessee Williams play premiere. The one-act play The Fat Man's Wife its NY debut as part of Manhattan Theatre Club's Off-Broadway Williams multiple-bill Five by Tenn featuring Robert Sella, Kathleen Chalfant and Penny Fuller.
More of Today's Birthdays: Roland Young 1887. Clifton Webb 1889. Robert Ryan 1909. Calista Flockhart 1964.
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