Today's Birthdays 10/24

[do_re_milla]

Posted: 10/24/03 at 12:49pm

Dame Sybil Thorndike 10/24/1882 - 6/9/1976 English performer - 1907 The Merchant of Venice(Sidney Greenstreet); The Distaff Side (Estelle Winwood); film's 1947 Nicholas Nickleby, The Prince & The Showgirl; Shake Hands w/the Devil

Moss Hart 10/24/1904 - 12/20/1961 Producer, Writer, Source Material, Director, Performer, Theatre Owner/Operator, Husband of Kitty Carlisle (1946 - 1961) his death - Merrily We Roll Along; You Can't Take It With You; (perf'd in) 1926 The Emperor Jones; Tony Award-winning director: My Fair Lady [1957]; playwright: You Can’t Take It with You, Gentleman’s Agreement, The Man Who Came to Dinner [w/George S. Kaufman], I Married An Angel

Sonny Terry 10/24/1911 - Mar 12, 1986 performer - origs. Finian's Rainbow; Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Barbara Bel Geddes [Maggie], Ben Gazzara [Brick]

Gilbert Becaud 10/24/1927 - Dec 18, 2001 composer - ROZA (Marcia Lewis, Georgia Brown)

F. Murray Abraham 10/24/1939 performer - Angels In America I & II; film's Academy Award-winning actor: Amadeus [1984]; Surviving the Game, Last Action Hero, Nostradamus, Scarface, Serpico, The Sunshine Boys, All the President’s Men

Kevin Kline 10/24/1947 performer, husband of Phoebe Cates (1989 - present) Producer, Performer, Artistic Crew (1 of my heros) - 1973 3 Sisters (David Ogden Stiers, Patti LuPone); On the 20th Century (Imogene Coca, John Cullum. Couldn't Kevin play Oscar now?); The Pirates of Penzance (Linda Ronstadt, Estelle Parsons, Rex Smith); tv's & film's Academy Award-winning actor: A Fish Called Wanda [1988]; Silverado, Grand Canyon, Dave, Princess Caraboo, Search for Tomorrow, [my personal favs:] The Big Chill, Sophie’s Choice. I still remember Kevin & Phoebe wheeling their little kids around The Food Emporium on W. 68th St. just like any other family out grocery shopping for the wk. Can't help but wonder what would have happened if he & Patti LuPone got hitched....

B.D.(Bradley Darryl) Wong 10/24/1962 performer, father of Jackson Foo Wong, Partner of Richie Jackson - M. Butterfly (John Lithgow); 1999 You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown; tv's & film's Seven Years in Tibet, Executive Decision, Father of the Bride series, Men of War, Jurassic Park, Mystery Date, The Freshman,All-American Girl, LAW & ORDER

SHOWS THAT OPENED ON THIS DATE:

1910 Fred Terry stars in the title role of The Scarlet Pimpernel, the non-musical original Broadway adaptation of Baroness Orczy's novel.

1935 Mulatto, a new play by poet Langston Hughes, opens tonight at the Vanderbilt Theatre. This play, which follows the trials of a young interracial couple in the Old South, stars Rose McClendon and runs 373 performances.

1951 The Ethel Barrymore Theatre hosts Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronyn performing together for the first time on a Broadway stage. They star in Jan deHartog's comedy The Fourposter, opening tonight. Jose Ferrer stages this show, whose entire action takes place in a bedroom. The show will run for 632 performances, and Tandy and Cronyn will be compared to Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne by Daily News critic John Chapman. A musical version of The Fourposter, I Do! I Do!, would become a hit for Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones.

110 in the Shade 10/24/1963 Fresh from their success with The Fantasticks, songwriters Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt make their Broadway debut with 110 in the Shade based on N. Richard Nash's drama, The Rainmaker.

Equus 10/24/1974 Peter Shaffer has a hit on Broadway tonight as his Equus opens at the Plymouth Theatre. The story follows a tragic young man's fascination with horses until it ultimately affects his sex life. The entire plot takes place in a psychiatric ward, where Anthony Hopkins portrays the psychiatrist who tries his hardest to help this disturbed young man, played by Peter Firth. Frances Sternhagen and Marian Seldes also star in this Tony and New York Drama Critics Circle Award- winning play. The show will run 1,209 performances.

Dancing at Lughnasa 10/24/1991 Irishman Brian Friel's Dancing at Lughnasa opens tonight at the Plymouth Theatre. The story follows five unmarried sisters faced with poverty in rural Ireland. Friel has long been a New York favorite, bringing such works to New York as Faith Healer, Give Me Your Answer, Do; Wonderful Tennessee and Translations.

Proof 10/24/2000

Movin' Out 10/24/2002 Pop songwriter Billy Joel makes his Broadway debut with Movin' Out, consisting of songs from his pop catalog fashioned by director/choreographer Twyla Tharp into an all-dancing narrative about three buddies' experience in the Vietnam War. It will win Tony Awards for both its primary creators: Best Choreography for Tharp, Best Orchestrations for Joel.

ON THIS DAY IN:

1929 - This day became known as Black Thursday after Wall Street investors panicked and ordered their stock brokers to sell, sell, sell! Nearly 13 million shares traded hands and stock prices plummeted. Many stocks recovered late in the afternoon, but the stage had been set for the October 29th stock market crash -- and the beginning of the Great Depression.

1994 Actor Raul Julia dies today after suffering a stroke. He is 54. Heavily involved in the Public's New York Shakespeare Festival, he starred in The Threepenny Opera and The Cherry Orchard, as well as Broadway's Nine and movies such as "The Addams Family". At his funeral, friend Susan Sarandon said he "asked all the big questions and smoked all the big cigars."

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

Milla