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

[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 July 20th through July 26th.

[0:18] Mark Peikert: On July 20th, 1987, Charles Bush's send-up of Beach Movies, Psycho Beach Party, opens off Broadway at the Player's Theater.

[0:27] Mark Peikert: Bush himself is among the cast of the lampoon, directed by Kenneth Elliott, which rides the waves for 344 performances.

[0:38] Mark Peikert: Fiddler on the Roof, which opened September 22nd, 1964, surpasses Hello Dolly as Broadway's longest-running musical on July 21, 1971, with 2,845 performances.

[0:51] Mark Peikert: The production finally closes its doors July 2nd of the next year.

[1:14] Mark Peikert: Boxer turned TV star Tony Danza takes over the lead role of Eddie in the Broadway revival of Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge in 1998, succeeding Tony-winning Best Actor Anthony LaPaglia.

[1:36] Mark Peikert: Opening in a world premiere off-Broadway engagement in 2011 at the Roundabout Theater Company's Laura Pels.

[1:45] Mark Peikert: Cate Blanchett and Richard Roxburgh lead the Sydney Theatre Company production of Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, opening in 2012 at New York City Center for a 10-performance run as part of the Lincoln Center Festival.

[2:01] Mark Peikert: On July 22nd, 1912, the Schubert brothers opened the first of their annual Passing Show installments.

[2:07] Mark Peikert: The Passing Show of 1912 features Charlotte Greenwood, Trixie Fraganza, and Eugene and Willie Howard.

[2:14] Mark Peikert: There are 136 performances and new editions of the revue every year for the next 11 years.

[2:24] Mark Peikert: In 2001, Chicago's Pegasus Players hosts the world premiere of the musical Muscle by James LePine, composer William Finn, and lyricist Ellen Fitzhugh.

[2:34] Mark Peikert: Originally planned by LePine as a companion piece to Stephen Sondheim's one-act Passion, it finally makes its debut with a new songwriting team.

[2:45] Mark Peikert: In 2004, Stephen Sondheim returns to Broadway with his first, mostly new score in a decade.

[2:51] Mark Peikert: Lincoln Center Theatre's production of The Frogs is an expanded version of Sondheim's short 1973 musical, which had debuted literally in the swimming pool at Yale University.

[3:02] Mark Peikert: Nathan Lane, who plays Dionysus, makes his Broadway debut as a librettist with Susan Stroman directing.

[3:11] Mark Peikert: On July 23, 1938, Helen Hayes is named the stage's greatest performer when the New York Sun prints its list of great performers.

[3:20] Mark Peikert: Compiled after polling 150 notable people, mostly in the theater industry.

[3:28] Mark Peikert: The pair of Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne is third, and others on the list include John Barrymore, Maud Adams, and John Gielgud.

[3:38] Mark Peikert: Kyle Jean-Baptiste, who was cast in the Broadway revival of Les Misérables following his graduation from Baldwin Wallace University, makes history in 2015 when he goes on as Jean Valjean at 21 years old.

[3:50] Mark Peikert: Jean-Baptiste is the youngest actor and first Black actor to perform the role on Broadway.

[3:58] Mark Peikert: In 2018, Young Jean Lee makes history as the first Asian American female playwright produced on Broadway, when her play, Straight White Men, opens at the Helen Hayes Theater.

[4:12] Mark Peikert: Angela Lansbury, who won the 1966 Tony Award for Mame, returns to Broadway in a revival of the musical at the Gershwin Theater July 24, 1983.

[4:23] Mark Peikert: Also in the cast is original Agnes Gooch, Jane Connell.

[4:29] Mark Peikert: Mike Nichols' production of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull begins performances at Central Park's Delacorte Theater in 2001.

[4:36] Mark Peikert: Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline had the cast, which includes Marcia Gay Harden, Natalie Portman, Christopher Walken, Philip Seymour Hoffman, John Goodman, Deborah Monk, Stephen Spinella, and Larry Pine.

[4:51] Mark Peikert: In 2003, Roundabout Theater Company and Deaf West Theatre present an American Sign Language adaptation of Big River, opening on Broadway at the American Airlines Theatre.

[5:02] Mark Peikert: Featuring a cast of Deaf, Hard of Hearing, and Hearing actors, most roles are double-cast, with one actor speaking and singing and one signing.

[5:27] Mark Peikert: On July 25th, 1968, Art Carney opens in Lovers, a double bill of Brian Friel one acts at the Vivian Beaumont.

[5:34] Mark Peikert: The limited engagement breaks box office records and later transfers to a second limited run at the Music Box, for a total of 148 performances.

[5:46] Mark Peikert: After a smash run at the Public Theater in New York City, the Marvin Hamlisch and Edward Kleban musical A Chorus Line makes the move uptown to Broadway's Schubert Theater in 1975.

[6:00] Mark Peikert: In 1996, Tony Award-winning musical star Patti LuPone returns to the Broadway stage as Maria Callas in Terrence McNally's Masterclass.

[6:12] Mark Peikert: Judd Hirsch returns to Broadway in 2002 in the role that earned him the 1986 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play, Nat, in I'm Not Rappaport.

[6:22] Mark Peikert: Starring opposite Hirsch in the revival is Ben Vereen.

[6:28] Mark Peikert: Jeff Blumenkrantz and Brett Ryback star as Suspects and Detective, respectively, in the two-person whodunit musical Murder for Two, opening in 2013 at the McGinn/Cazale Theater as part of the Second Stage Uptown series.

[6:42] Mark Peikert: The production later transfers to New World Stages for an extended run.

[6:54] Mark Peikert: The stage adaptation of the cult favorite movie stars Aaron Tveit and Karen Olivo as doomed lovers Christian and Satine, and Danny Burstein as the grinning MC of the titular club.

[7:08] Mark Peikert: The New York premiere of Leslie Headland's Bachelorette opens off Broadway July 26, 2010.

[7:13] Mark Peikert: Headland later writes and directs a feature film adaptation of the play.

[7:20] Mark Peikert: And in 2018, the musical Head Over Heels, which combines Sir Philip Sidney's 16th-century pastoral romance Arcadia with the songs of the 1980s female rock group The Go-Go's, opens on Broadway at the Hudson.

[7:35] Mark Peikert: For more theater history, visit Playbill.com.

[7:38] Mark Peikert: And for more great podcasts, visit BroadwayPodcastNetwork.com.