This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

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

[0:08] Mark Peikert: I'm Mark Peikert, the editor in chief of Playbill, and you are listening to Today in Theatre History for the week of June 15th through the 21st.

[0:18] Mark Peikert: On June 15, 1965, legendary theater is made when the husband and wife team of Hume Cronin and Jessica Tandy open in the Cherry Orchard at the Tyrone Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis.

[0:29] Mark Peikert: Variety hails the production as the outstanding presentation of the Chekhov classic in a lifetime of theater going and would be a credit to any company.

[0:38] Mark Peikert: Cronin and Tandy continue to grace the stage together for many years to come in such productions as Foxfire and The Gin Game.

[0:56] Mark Peikert: Though initially announced to run 60 performances at the Music Box, it closes after 10 days.

[1:04] Mark Peikert: On June 16, 1937, when the audience arrives at Maxine Elliott's Theater for the first public performance of Mark Blitzstein's pro-union labor opera, The Cradle Will Rock, they are informed by director Orson Welles that the government has shut down the WPA Federal Theater Project production.

[1:20] Mark Peikert: In response, Welles and producer John Houseman rent the Empty Venice Theater, and the cast and audience marched 20 blocks uptown to the new venue.

[1:28] Mark Peikert: For the performance, Blitzstein plays the piano on a bare stage, Welles narrates the action, and the actors, barred from taking the stage by the president of Actors Equity, perform their roles from seats in the audience.

[1:28] Mark Peikert: Piece De La Guarda christens New York City's new Darrell Roth Theater in Union Square.

[1:50] Mark Peikert: The space that was once a bank is home to the show in which audiences stand while they watch the performers suspended above by rope and cable.

[1:57] Mark Peikert: The performance with music but no words takes place entirely in the air.

[2:01] Mark Peikert: It runs 2,475 performances before closing in 2004.

[2:09] Mark Peikert: In 2005, Kate Burton opens in The Constant Wife in Roundabout Theatre Company's revival of the 1926 W. Somerset Maugham comedy.

[2:18] Mark Peikert: The cast also includes Michael Cumpsty, John Dawsett, and Lynn Redgrave.

[2:25] Mark Peikert: A 2011 revival of Harold Pinter's Betrayal, starring Kristin Scott Thomas, Ben Miles, and Douglas Henshall, opens in London at the West End's Comedy Theatre.

[2:35] Mark Peikert: In Rickson directs the play that examines an extramarital affair in backwards chronology.

[2:42] Mark Peikert: June 17, 1943, saw the opening of the hit George Marion Jr. and Fat Swaller's musical, Early to Bed, at the Broadhurst.

[2:50] Mark Peikert: Set at a Martinique brothel that pretends to be a girls' school as a cover, the show had the misfortune of opening during a musician strike and never received a cast album.

[3:01] Mark Peikert: Oh! Calcutta! opened at the Eden Theater in New York in 1969.

[3:05] Mark Peikert: The adult-oriented review boasts a mostly nude cast, performing skits by the likes of John Lennon, Samuel Beckett, and Sam Shepard.

[3:13] Mark Peikert: While the production has a long and successful run, it is the 1976 revival that enters the history books as one of the longest-running musicals of all time, with 5,969 performances.

[3:28] Mark Peikert: Tradition is broken in 1972, as Fiddler on the Roof becomes the longest-running Broadway production in history.

[3:35] Mark Peikert: Its 3,225 performances allow it to surpass the previous record set by Life with Father.

[3:43] Mark Peikert: The world premiere of Jackie Sibblies Drury's Fairview opens off-Broadway in 2018 at Soho Rep.

[3:49] Mark Peikert: Through the style of a naturalistic family drama, the play examines race in America and the ways in which we watch and judge each other every day.

[3:56] Mark Peikert: It wins the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

[4:02] Mark Peikert: Michael R. Jackson's A Strange Loop makes its world premiere at Playwright's Horizons.

[4:06] Mark Peikert: The musical, with a book and score by Jackson, follows Usher, a black queer writer working a job he hates while writing his original musical.

[4:13] Mark Peikert: The 2019 production wins the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

[4:20] Mark Peikert: A New York theater-going tradition is born June 18, 1962, as the Delacorte Theater in Central Park first opens, with a production of The Merchant of Venice starring George C. Scott.

[4:33] Mark Peikert: A New Brain, the latest work from Falsettos composer William Finn, opens in 1998 at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater in New York's Lincoln Center.

[4:41] Mark Peikert: The musical, about a composer who faces the possibility of death from a brain tumor, stars Malcolm Gets, Mary Testa, Kristen Chenoweth, Chip Zean, and Penny Fuller.

[4:52] Mark Peikert: The Citysitter Encore's Summer Stars production of the Charlie Small's William F. Brown musical The Wiz, which boasts R&B artist Ashanti as Dorothy, opens in 2010 at the famed New York venue.

[5:04] Mark Peikert: Directed by Thomas Kail, the cast also includes Orlando Jones as The Wiz and LaChanze as Glinda.

[5:12] Mark Peikert: Kevin Kline and Meryl Streep, both veterans of Shakespeare in the Park, play star-crossed lovers Romeo and Juliet, respectively, in a 2012 One Night Only staged reading at the Delacorte.

[5:23] Mark Peikert: The all-star cast also includes Christopher Walken as Mercutio, Sam Waterston as Benvolio, Jeffrey Wright as Tybalt, F. Murray Abraham as Friar Lawrence, and Christine Baranski as Nurse.

[5:36] Mark Peikert: On June 19, 1978, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, starring Carlin Glenn, opens on Broadway at the 46th Street Theater.

[5:45] Mark Peikert: The musical, directed by Peter Masterson and Tommy Tune, garners seven Tony nominations and wins two.

[5:50] Mark Peikert: It's later adapted into the popular movie musical, starring Dolly Parton and Burt Reynolds.

[5:59] Mark Peikert: Though Cats opened to mixed reviews in October 1982, the show officially became the longest-running musical in Broadway history in 1997 when it played its record-breaking 6,138th performance.

[6:12] Mark Peikert: The record is later surpassed by another Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, The Phantom of the Opera, in 2006.

[6:21] Mark Peikert: In 2014, Holler If You Hear Me, a non-biographical musical inspired by the music and lyrics of Tupac Shakur, opens on Broadway at the Palace Theater.

[6:32] Mark Peikert: On June 20th, 1910, Florence Ziegfeld opens the Ziegfeld Follies of 1910 with actor Bert Williams as co-star, marking the first time white and black entertainers have appeared on stage together in a major Broadway production.

[6:46] Mark Peikert: The musical revue Hot Chocolates opens a 219-performance run at the Hudson Theater in 1929, featuring some of the great stars of Harlem nightclubs, including the Broadway debut of Louis Armstrong and a score by Fat Swaller, Harry Brooks, and Andy Razov.

[7:04] Mark Peikert: In 2000, composer-lyricist-librettist Kristen Child's musical, The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin, gets its world premiere at Playwright's Horizons.

[7:13] Mark Peikert: The musical memoir stars LaChanze.

[7:18] Mark Peikert: June 21st, 1903 marks the birthday of caricaturist Al Hirschfeld.

[7:22] Mark Peikert: His distinctive looping line drawings capture the essence of Broadway shows from the 1920s through the early 2000s.

[7:28] Mark Peikert: The Martin Beck Theater is renamed the Al Hirschfeld in 2003, just months after his death at age 99.

[7:37] Mark Peikert: In 2018, Adina Menzel plays a woman who discovers that her famous father is in a relationship with a much younger gay adult film actor in the world premiere of Joshua Harmon's Skin Tight.

[7:47] Mark Peikert: The production plays a limited engagement at the Roundabout Theatre Company's Laura Pels.

[7:53] Mark Peikert: For more theater history, visit Playbill.com.

[7:56] Mark Peikert: And for more great podcasts, visit BroadwayPodcastNetwork.com.