Playbill Vault's Today in Theatre History: March 27 | Playbill

Playbill Vault Playbill Vault's Today in Theatre History: March 27 In 2008, Patti LuPone stars in a Broadway revival of Gypsy.
Boyd Gaines, Laura Benanti, and Patti LuPone in Gypsy. Joan Marcus

1924 Long before Madonna sang about Vogueing, there were the Vogues of 1924. The revue at the Shubert Theatre stars Fred Allen and Jimmy Savo. It runs for almost three months.

1933 The School for Scandal is revived at London's Old Vic. In the cast are Alastair Sim, Anthony Quayle, and Peggy Ashcroft.

1974 The Prospect Theatre Company stages William Shakespeare's Pericles at Her Majesty's Theatre in London. Toby Robertson directs and Derek Jacobi plays the lead.

1977 Martin Balsam and Paul Sparer play cancer patients finding different ways to accept their fates in Cold Storage. The drama by Ronald Ribman runs for six weeks at the American Place Theatre in New York.

1978 Dancin', an anthology of dance vignettes directed and choreographed by Bob Fosse, opens on Broadway at the Broadhurst Theatre. Fosse wins a Tony Award for his choreography, and the production runs 1,774 performances.

1983 Playwright Neil Simon begins his Brighton Beach trilogy as Brighton Beach Memoirs opens at Broadway's Alvin Theatre. Matthew Broderick stars as Eugene Jerome, a role he reprises two years later in the trilogy's second play, Biloxi Blues.

1988 Joe Turner's Come and Gone opens its run at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre and stars Angela Bassett and Delroy Lindo. The August Wilson play, about a family in 1911 Pittsburgh, runs 105 performances.

1996 Rodgers and Hammerstein's 1945 film musical State Fair makes its Broadway debut at the Music Box Theatre. John Davidson, Kathryn Crosby, Andrea McArdle, and Donna McKechnie star. It is the final Broadway show produced by "abominable showman" David Merrick.

2003 A Broadway adaptation of the film Urban Cowboy opens at the Broadhurst Theatre, with a score cobbled together from more than a dozen songwriters. After receiving harsh reviews, the show struggles on for 60 performances.

2008 Patti LuPone brings her summer 2007 Encores! revival of the musical Gypsy to Broadway, co-starring Laura Benanti and Boyd Gaines. The three win 2008 Tony Awards for their performances. Librettist Arthur Laurents directs.

2011 Daniel Radcliffe climbs the ladder from window washer to corporate wunderkind in the 50th anniversary revival of the Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre. Rob Ashford directs and choreographs the musical, which features a score by Frank Loesser and book by Abe Burrows, Jack Weinstock, and Willie Gilbert.

2012 The King's Speech, David Seidler's play that was adapted as the Oscar-winning 2010 feature film, opens at the West End's Wyndham's Theatre. Directed by Adrian Noble, the production stars Charles Edwards as King George VI and Jonathan Hyde as speech therapist Lionel Logue. The stage version does not repeat the film's success, and closes seven weeks later.

2017 The New York premiere of John Leguizamo's Latin History for Morons opens Off-Broadway at the Public Theater. The satirical solo show is inspired by Leguizamo's observation that Latinos are often overlooked in the teaching of American history. The production transfers to Broadway later the same year.

2019 Jordan E. Cooper's Ain't No Mo', directed by Stevie Walker-Webb, opens at the Public Theater. Using a series of vignettes, the new play is a satirical odyssey portraying the departure of Black Americans from the country. Cooper himself stars, alongside Marchánt Davis, Fedna Jacquet, Crystal Lucas-Perry, Ebony Marshall-Oliver, and Simone Recasner.

Today's Birthdays Gloria Swanson (1899-1983). Budd Schulberg (1914-2009). Steve McQueen (1930-1980). Austin Pendleton (b. 1940). Michael York (b. 1942). Jed Bernstein (b. 1955). Bartlett Sher (b. 1959). Quentin Tarantino (b. 1963).

Look Back at John Leguizamo’s Solo Shows on Broadway

 
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