Today's Birthdays 1/27

[do_re_milla]

Posted: 1/27/04 at 10:46am

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 1/27/1756 - 12/5/1791 Austrian composer, source mat'l - Don Giovanni, The Marriage of Figaro, Symphony #41, Requiem, A Little Night Music; Amadeus

Lewis Carroll 1/27/1832 - 1/14/1898 English logician, mathematician, photographer, and novelist - 1983 Alice in Wonderland (Kate Burton, Eva Le Gallienne, Mary Stuart Masterson, Mary Louise Wilson); The National Theater of the Deaf; But Never Jam Today

Jerome Kern 1/27/1885 - 11/11/1945 one of America's foremost composers of music for the theatre and screen,who will write scores to many Broadway shows, including classics, Show Boat, Sally, Very Good Eddie and Roberta. His songs will resurface in the 2003 musical, Never Gonna Dance

Bud DeSylva 01/27/1895 - Jul 11, 1950 Producer, Lyricist, Writer, Composer, Source Material, Theatre Owner/Operator - Good News, Sally, The Ziegfeld Follies of 1921 and several editions of George White's Scandals

Harry Ruby 01/27/1895 - Feb 23, 1974 Producer, Writer, Lyricist, Composer - The Five O'Clock Girl and the Marx Brothers' Animal Crackers, Duck Soup

Benay Venuta 01/27/1911 Wife of Fred Clark (February 15, 1952 - ?) divorced - By Jupiter; Hazel Flagg; Copper and Brass; 1966 Annie Get Your Gun

Sabu (Dastagir) 1924 - 12/2/1963 performer - A Tiger Walks, The Treasure of Bengal, The Jungle Book, Arabian Nights, The Thief of Bagdad, The Elephant Boy

Doretta Morrow 01/27/1927 Cousin of Vic Damone, performer - origs. Where's Charley?; The King and I; Kismet

Troy Donahue 1/27/1936 - 9/2/2001 Hawaiian Eye, Parrish, A Summer Place, Assault of the Party Nerds, The Godfather: Part 2, The Chilling

Mimi Rogers 1/27/1956 performer - Full Body Massage, Monkey Trouble, Dark Horse, The Rousters, Desperate Hours, The Mighty Quinn, Someone To Watch Over Me, Blue Skies Again

Bridget Fonda 1/27/1964 performer - film's Point of No Return, The Godfather, Part 3, Aria, 21 Jump Street; daughter of actor, Peter Fonda and actress, Susan Brewer, granddaughter of actor, Henry Fonda, niece of actress, Jane Fonda

Alan Cumming 01/27/1965 performer - 1998 Cabaret; 2001 Design For Living; film's Circle of Friends (wonderfully smarmi)

SHOWS THAT OPENED ON THIS DATE:

1931 Broadway debut of Noel Coward's romantic comedy Private Lives, with Coward playing Elyot and Gertrude Lawrence as Amanda. It will run 256 performances at the Times Square Theatre, and will go on to be Coward's most-produced work -- seven times on Broadway alone.

1939 Cyril Cusak is Christy Mahon, widely known as The Playboy of the Western World. This revival of John Millington Synge's work plays at London's Mercury Theatre.

1955 Barbara Cook has her first hit in an original musical, Plain and Fancy, set in Pennsylvania Dutch country. The Albert Hague/Joseph Stein musical will run 461 performances and become a staple of stock companies.

1959 Adapted from the film of the same name, Rashomon plays at the Music Box Theatre. Peter Glenville directs Claire Bloom, Rod Steiger and Oscar Homolka in a run of 20 weeks in this Fay and Michael Kanin dramatization from the original Japanese.

1969 Aristophanes' anti-war comedy Peace is updated by Tim Reynolds, and set to music with a score by Rev. Al Carmines. Lawrence Kornfeld stages the 192 performances at the Astor Place Theatre.

1974 Carol Channing stars as Lorelei a Kenny Solms and Gail Parent musical, inspired by the show Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Jule Styne, Betty Comden, and Adolph Green provide the songs. Direction is handled by Robert Moore.

1983 After it has a successful life in London and stock productions, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice see their first musical, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, open on Broadway. Laurie Beechman and Bill Hutton are featured in the musical, which attains a run of 747 performances at the Royale Theatre.

1991 Stephen Sondheim's new musical, Assassins, opens at Playwrights Horizon. Featured in the cast are Victor Garber, Debra Monk, Terrence Mann, Patrick Cassidy, and Annie Golden.

1997 John Gray's solo performance, Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, based on his book of the same title, opens at the Gershwin Theatre. The show includes commentary on the relationships between men and women.

ON THIS DAY IN:

1901 Opera composer Giuseppe Verdi died in Milan, Italy, at age 87.

1961 - Leontyne Price made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. She sang in the role of Leonora in Il Trovatore. Price was only the seventh black singer to make a debut at the Met. Marian Anderson was the first (1955).

(sources: IBDB, NYT's ON THIS DAY, 440.com’s Those Were The Days, Playbill.com)

Milla