This Week in Broadway History: April 13 - 19

This Week in Broadway History:

April 13 - 19

🎭OPENING NIGHTS🎭 

April 13, 2000: Queenie was a blonde and her age stood still. Well for 68 performances, anyway. The Michael John LaChiusa version of The Wild Party opened at the Virginia Theatre.

April 14, 1992: The beloved revival of Guys and Dolls starring Nathan Lane, Faith Prince and Peter Gallagher opened at the Martin Beck Theatre, where the floating craps game stayed for 1,143 performances.

April 14, 2011: Ten years ago (!) the epic Best Play War Horse opened at the Vivian Beaumont at Lincoln Center for a run of 718 performances.

April 15, 2009: The Pulitzer Prize-winning Next to Normal opened its 733 performance run at the Booth Theatre.

April 16, 1985: The ahead-of-its-time (IMHO) musical Grind opened at the Mark Hellinger for a disappointing run of just 71 performances.

April 17, 2019: The reigning Best Musical, Hadestown, opened at the Walter Kerr, where it will return when Broadway does.

April 18, 1994: The Disney Broadway era began on this date when Beauty and the Beast opened at the Palace Theatre. The show would close at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre following a total of 5,462 performances.

April 19, 2015: The Best Musical of 2015, Fun Home, opened at the Circle-in-the-Square and stayed there for 583 performances.

🎂HAPPY BIRTHDAY🎂

April 13: actor (Baby, Cats) Liz Calloway

April 14: actor (13) Graham Phillips, producer (Wicked, The Band's Visit) Marc Platt

April 15: actor (Hair, Ghost, Frozen) Caissie Levy, actor (The Humans) Arian Moayed

April 16: Tony-winning actors Kelli O'Hara (The King and I) and Ellen Barkin (The Normal Heart)

Reeve Carney     Arian Moayed

Kelli O'Hara     Nicolette Robinson

April 17: actor (Cyrano de Bergerac) Jennifer Garner, actor (The Secret Garden) Rebecca Luker, playwright (Our Town) Thornton Wilder

April 18: actor (Waitress) Nicolette Robinson, actor (Hadestown) Reeve Carney, Tony-winner (Hello, Dolly!) Gavin Creel

April 13: director Scott Ellis, orchestrator Jonathan Tunick

📆ON BROADWAY THIS WEEK IN 1957📆

So many of the plays and musicals that we consider classics today, were brand new this week in 1957. Take Auntie Mame, for example. Rosalind Russell was packing 'em in at the Broadhurst with this delightful comedy. Then there's the newly opened Orpheus Descending by Tennessee Williams (at the original Helen Hayes), and what would be that season's Best Play and Pulitzer Prize-winner, Eugene O'Neill's new drama, Long Day's Journey Into Night at the Martin Beck. Maybe Hotel Paradiso isn't a classic, but it is notable for the Broadway debut of one of its cast members, future Mame and Dame, Angela Lansbury. 

On the musicals front, this week you could enjoy the festivities in Dogpatch, USA with Li'l Abner at the St. James, and the great Judy Holliday at the Shubert in Bells Are Ringing. Or, if bold and brassy is more your style, also on 44th Street, there's Ethel Merman in Happy Hunting at the Majestic Theatre.

Hot ticket holdovers from prior seasons include The Diary of Anne Frank at the Ambassador, The Most Happy Fella at the Imperial, and Julie Andrews and Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady at the Mark Hellinger. What a time to be a theater lover!

#2538