Upon the Dec. 1 launch of its beta version, the Playbill Vault includes information on over 10,000 shows and 120,000 actors, creative teams and crew members who have worked or are currently working on Broadway, with content being added on a daily basis. ***
Fifty years ago this week on Broadway the newly opened original production of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying was settling into its Pulitzer- and Tony-winning run, Jule Styne's Subways Are for Sleeping and Tennessee Williams' The Night of the Iguana were both in their final week of previews, and Stephen Sondheim and Burt Shevelove were gearing up for the spring opening of the first Broadway musical for which Sondheim composed a score, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Visit the Playbill Vault to see what the Broadway world was like a half century ago. Go to "Season" and use the pulldown menu to choose 1961-1962.