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[0:05] Mark Peikert: Good morning, theater lover, and happy August.

[0:08] Mark Peikert: I'm Mark Peikert, editor in chief of Playbill, and you are listening to Today in Theatre History for the week of August 3rd through August 9th.

[0:18] Mark Peikert: Martin Vale's melodrama The Two Mrs. Carols opens August 3, 1943 at the Booth.

[0:24] Mark Peikert: Elizabeth Bergner stars as a woman who finds out her husband is attempting to murder her.

[0:29] Mark Peikert: During the run, Bergner befriends a fan who waits for her nightly at the stage door, but turns out to be lying in an attempt to advance her own career.

[0:38] Mark Peikert: When Bergner tells her experience to Mary Orr, fiancée of the play's director Reginald Denham, Orr uses it as the basis for her short story The Wisdom of Eve, which is later adapted into the classic movie All About Eve.

[0:53] Mark Peikert: In 1978, Sammy Davis Jr. makes his final Broadway appearance, playing Little Chap in a revival of the Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley musical Stop the World, I Wanna Get Off.

[1:06] Mark Peikert: On August 4th, 1985, Charles Dickens' unfinished novel becomes The Mystery of Edwin Drood, a musical by Rupert Holmes at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park.

[1:16] Mark Peikert: The play within a play adaptation is performed by a cast including Betty Buckley, Judy Kuhn, and Donna Murphy, who play members of a troupe that is performing the show.

[1:26] Mark Peikert: The production transfers to Broadway's Imperial Theater later in the season and runs for 608 performances, eventually changing its title to simply Drood.

[1:51] Mark Peikert: Harlem's song, George C. Wolfe's History of New York City's world-famous African-American neighborhood, as told through its music and dance, opens at the Apollo Theater in Harlem in 2002.

[2:04] Mark Peikert: The Public Theater's Shakespeare in the Park production of King Lear, starring John Lithgow in the title role, opens August 5th, 2014 at the Delacorte Theater.

[2:13] Mark Peikert: Directed by Daniel Sullivan, the cast also includes Annette Bening as Goneril, Jessica Collins as Cordelia, Jessica Hecht as Regan, and Steven Boyer as The Fool.

[2:25] Mark Peikert: On August 6th, 1947, Variety announces that John Garfield will star in the premiere production of a new Tennessee Williams play, A Streetcar Named Desire.

[2:34] Mark Peikert: As history will have it, contractual demands rule him out, and he's replaced by a little-known newcomer, Marlon Brando.

[2:44] Mark Peikert: In 2015, Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda's acclaimed musical that fuses the contemporary and classic worlds to tell the story of America's founding father Alexander Hamilton, opens on Broadway at the Richard Rodgers Theater.

[2:57] Mark Peikert: It goes on to win 11 Tony Awards, including Best Musical, and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

[3:05] Mark Peikert: On August 7, 1984, David Rabe's Hurlyburly opens on Broadway at the Ethel Barrymore.

[3:11] Mark Peikert: Mike Nichols directs a star-studded cast that includes Harvey Keitel, William Hurt, Ron Silver, Jerry Stiller, Cynthia Nixon, Sigourney Weaver, and Judith Ivey.

[3:24] Mark Peikert: It's terrific!

[3:26] Mark Peikert: On August 8th, 1975, Liza Minnelli comes to the rescue of Chicago.

[3:31] Mark Peikert: With only six days to learn the role of Roxy Hart, the Academy Award-winning stage and film star agrees to fill in for an ailing Gwen Verdon.

[3:41] Mark Peikert: In 2002, Edie Falco and Stanley Tucci open on Broadway in Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune at the Velasco.

[3:48] Mark Peikert: This marks the Broadway debut for Terrence McNally's romance, which played off-Broadway's Manhattan Theater Club in 1987.

[3:58] Mark Peikert: Zachary Levi goes on his first date with Christa Rodriguez when the musical opens on Broadway at the Longacre in 2013.

[4:06] Mark Peikert: The show is about a tightly wound guy who is set up with a serial dating cool girl.

[4:13] Mark Peikert: Seawall/A Life opens at Broadway's Hudson Theater in 2019, with Tom Sturridge and Jake Gyllenhaal reprising their performances from the hit Off-Broadway run at The Public.

[4:26] Mark Peikert: Julie Andrews makes her directing debut, August 9, 2003, at Long Island's Bay Street Theater with a revival of The Boyfriend, the musical with which she made her Broadway debut in 1954.

[4:40] Mark Peikert: A revival of Into the Woods, Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's Tony Award-winning musical that intertwines classic fairy tales, opens in 2012 at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park.

[4:51] Mark Peikert: The Shakespeare in the Park production stars Donna Murphy as The Witch, Dennis O'Hare as The Baker, Amy Adams as The Baker's Wife, and Jessie Mueller as Cinderella.

[5:03] Mark Peikert: The New York premiere of Be More Chill opens off-Broadway at the Pershing Square Signature Center in 2018.

[5:09] Mark Peikert: Will Roland stars in the show about an awkward high schooler who succumbs to the influence of the Squip, a pill-shaped supercomputer purported to make its user more chill.

[5:18] Mark Peikert: The production sells out its limited engagement and transfers to Broadway the following year.

[5:25] Mark Peikert: For more theater history, visit Playbill.com, and for more great podcasts, visit BroadwayPodcastNetwork.com.