Playbill Vault’s Today in Theatre History: May 20 | Playbill

Playbill Vault Playbill Vault’s Today in Theatre History: May 20 Today's birthdays include Sierra Boggess, Lisa Kron, and Judy Kuhn.
Judy Kuhn and Sierra Boggess Arturo Olmos

1919 Guy Bolton and P.G. Wodehouse call it Kissing Time at London’s Winter Garden Theatre. Ivan Caryll provides the music for the tale of complications arising when French ladies carry on correspondence with younger men during the war. Lips lock for 430 performances.

1936 London’s New Theatre hosts Theodore Komisarjevsky’s staging of Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull. In the cast are Edith Evans, John Gielgud, and Alec Guinness.

1969 La Corporation du Grand Theatre de Quebec is founded to promote the arts in Quebec City, Canada. The building has a large 1,800-seat theatre for operas, concerts, and dramas; a 300–600-seat flexible room for plays; and a music conservatory for the 250–350 students.

1990 The fateful four in Forever Plaid harmonize their way to Off-Broadway’s Steve McGraw’s Supper Club (renamed the Triad Theatre years later). Stan Chandler, David Engel, Jason Graae, and Guy Stroman compose the cast of Stuart Ross’ musical about a quartet who get to perform their last show they never made it to.

1999 Next year’s Tony nominees Philip Seymour Hoffman (True West) and Amy Ryan (Uncle Vanya) star in the Drama Dept.’s double bill of Richard Greenberg’s The Author’s Voice and Peter HedgesImagining Brad. Evan Yionoulis directs both productions at the Greenwich House Theatre.

2001 Seussical, the Broadway musical based on the stories of Dr. Seuss, closes after a tumultuous seven-month run.

2001 The Producers wins most of the top musical prizes at the Drama Desk Awards, setting the stage for its record-breaking Tony Award win a few weeks later.

2012 Peter Gethers and Daniel Okrent’s Old Jews Telling Jokes, an evening of comedy whose title says it all, opens Off-Broadway at the Westside Theatre. The revue stars Bill Army, Marilyn Sokol, Todd Susman, Audrey Lynn Weston, and Lenny Wolpe.

Today’s Birthdays: Miklos Laszlo (1903–1973); James Stewart (1908–1997); Constance Towers (b. 1933); Judy Kuhn (b. 1958); Bronson Pinchot (b. 1959); Lisa Kron (b. 1961); Sierra Boggess (b. 1982).

 
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