Today In Theatre History: MARCH 26

By Robert Viagas
March 26, 2008

1905 Actor Maurice Barrymore dies today. He was father to Lionel, Ethel and John. He was 57 years old.

1911 Thomas Lanier Williams is born today in Columbus, Mississippi. In 1940 a play will open in Boston titled Battle of Angels by 'Tennessee' Williams and theatre will soon change forever, as he goes on to write The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and other plays.

1923 Actress Sarah Bernhardt, 79, dies today in Paris. She began her stage training at the age of 13 and had her first stage success at the age of 28. It was a double triumph as she played the roles of Cordelia in King Lear and the queen in Ruy Blas at the Comedie-Francaise. She also acted the lead in Hamlet. She toured Europe and America with her own companies.

1964 Barbra Streisand becomes "the greatest star" when she opens on Broadway in her signature show, Funny Girl, and debuting her signature song, "People" by Jule Styne and Bob Merrill.

1973 Playwright, composer and actor Noel Coward died today in Jamaica. He made his Broadway debut in The Vortex, which he also wrote and directed. A prolific writer and composer, his style set and captured the wit and elegance of the time. He was 74 years old.

1987 August Wilson comes out swinging with his new play, Fences, which opens at the 46th Street Theatre. This drama about a family in the 1950s will win the Tony, the Drama Desk, the New York Drama Critics Circle and the Outer Critics Circle Awards, as well as the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Stars James Earl Jones and Mary Alice also go home with Tonys.

1997 The sun finally comes out for another tomorrow when the 20th anniversary revival of Annie, starring Nell Carter, opens at the Martin Beck Theatre. In the weeks prior to the opening, the show was making headlines after replacing star Joanna Pacitti, the young actress chosen via a nation-wide contest, with Brittny Kissinger.

2001 The meaning of the phrase "Nuremberg Defense" is explored for a new generation in a stage adaptation of Abby Mann's Judgment at Nuremberg, about postwar Nazi trials. It opens on Broadway with Maximilian Schell, George Grizzard and Tom Hayden.