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[0:05] Mark Peikert: Good morning, theater lover. I'm Mark Peikert, and you are listening to Today in Theatre History for the week of October 12th through October 18th.

[0:15] Mark Peikert: October 12th, 1914 sees the Broadway premiere of George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, with Mrs. Patrick Campbell as Eliza Doolittle.

[0:25] Mark Peikert: In 1950, the Irving Berlin musical Call Me Madam opens at the Imperial, with Ethel Merman being the primary basis for pushing the show. Walter Winchell announces that they ought to call it Call Me Merman. The show's story is suggested by the appointment of Washington hostess Pearl Mesta as ambassador to Luxembourg.

[0:42] Mark Peikert: Ethel Merman wins her only Tony Award for her performance.

[0:48] Mark Peikert: In 1971, "What's the Buzz? Tell me what's happening" is heard for the first time with a melody on Broadway as all the buzz is focused on fairly unknown composer Andrew Lloyd Webber's rock opera, Jesus Christ Superstar. The show, based on the Platinum-Selling album, opens at the Mark Hellinger for a very successful run of over 700 performances.

[1:11] Mark Peikert: In 2001, Kristen Johnston, Cynthia Nixon, Jennifer Tilley, Rue McClanahan are among the stars opening in the Broadway revival of The Women at the American Airlines.

[1:24] Mark Peikert: In 2017, Springsteen on Broadway, rock legend Bruce Springsteen's intimate blend of autobiographical solo play and acoustic concert, opens at the Walter Kerr. Springsteen receives a special Tony Award for the show, which is preserved as a Netflix special.

[1:41] Mark Peikert: October 13th, 1962, Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf opens at the Billy Rose Theater, now the Nederlander. Uta Hagen, Arthur Hill, Melinda Dillon, and George Grizzard are the cast who perform the three and a half-hour-long show six times a week.

[1:57] Mark Peikert: The show is so challenging and long, separate casts do matinee performances, including Elaine Stritch as Martha.

[2:07] Mark Peikert: In 2010, Alex Timbers and Michael Friedman's Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson opens at the Bernard B. Jacobs. Benjamin Walker stars as the seventh president of the United States, portrayed as a rebellious rock star leading a nation through its troubled teens.

[2:21] Mark Peikert: The 90-minute musical is equal parts sketch comedy, underground rock concert, and revisionist history lesson.

[2:29] Mark Peikert: In 2011, Katori Hall's Olivier Award-winning drama The Mountain Top, starring Angela Bassett and Samuel L. Jackson, opens on Broadway at the Bernard B. Jacobs. Set in a Memphis hotel room on April 3rd, the play imagines the events leading up to the assassination of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

[2:49] Mark Peikert: In 2012, 50 years to the day of its 1962 Broadway premiere, George and Martha returned to Broadway in a new production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, starring Tracy Letts and Amy Morton. This production earns three Tony Awards for Best Actor in a Play, Best Direction of a Play, and Best Revival of a Play.

[3:10] Mark Peikert: October 14th, 1930, the Gershwin brothers, George and Ira, are at it again with the opening of their new musical, Girl Crazy. The show provides an outlet for several unknown stars, both on stage and in the orchestra pit.

[3:23] Mark Peikert: Ethel Merman stops the show singing I've Got Rhythm with an incredible 16 beat hold on the eye. She is later reported as being able to hold a note longer than Chase Manhattan.

[3:34] Mark Peikert: Ingenue Ginger Rogers is also in the cast, singing Embraceable You, and not terribly pleased about Ethel Merman's attention. And in the orchestra are Benny Goodman, Jimmy Dorsey, Glenn Miller, and Gene Krupa.

[3:46] Mark Peikert: The show runs more than 34 weeks. In 1961, Frank Loesser and Abe Burroughs, Guys and Dolls collaborators, reteam for How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, opening at the 46th Street Theater.

[4:00] Mark Peikert: This time, they look not at the low-life underground, but at the high life and the goings-on within a high-rise office building. The show goes on to win seven Tony Awards, the Pulitzer Prize for drama, and run for more than 1,400 performances.

[4:28] Mark Peikert: On October 15, 1930, a new musical review opens on Broadway, Three's a Crowd, featuring Libby Holman, Fred Allen, Clifton Webb, Tamara Geva, and Fred McMurray. Some memorable songs are introduced in the show, including Body and Soul and Something to Remember You By.

[4:46] Mark Peikert: On October 16, 1939, acid-tongued New York Times theater critic Alexander Woollcott is parodied in Kaufman and Hart's Broadway comedy The Man Who Came to Dinner, which stars Monty Woolley and runs for 739 performances.

[5:03] Mark Peikert: In 1951, Judy Garland opens her legendary concert stand at the Palace Theater, Judy Garland, Palace to a Day.

[5:03] Mark Peikert: In 1997, Side Show, a musical about the real-life conjoined twins Daisy and Violet Hilton, who become Vaudeville and Folly stars, opens on Broadway. Though it runs only 91 performances, it attracts a small but dedicated cult of fans, many of whom see it again and again during its short run.

[5:30] Mark Peikert: Alice Ripley and Emily Skinner star as the twins and receive a joint Tony nomination for their performance.

[5:39] Mark Peikert: In 2003, Hugh Jackman takes the hearts of the audience to Rio with him in The Boy from Oz, a musical biography of singer-songwriter Peter Allen that uses Allen's own music to tell his life story. Jackman hosts the 2004 Tony Award ceremony, at which he wins the Tony for Best Actor in a Musical for the role.

[6:00] Mark Peikert: In 2005, the Virginia Theater is renamed the August Wilson Theater for the playwright who died two weeks earlier. In 2010, a revival of On the Town opens at the Lyric.

[6:14] Mark Peikert: Tony Yazbeck, Jay Armstrong Johnson, and Clyde Alves star as the sailors on 24 Hour Shore Leave who take on the Big Apple, with Megan Fairchild, Alicia Umphress, and Elizabeth Stanley as the women who steal their hearts.

[6:30] Mark Peikert: On October 17, 1960, Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick follow their Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning musical, Fiorello, with Tenderloin. Maurice Evans stars as Reverend Brock, a preacher who is determined to rid 1890s New York City of its red-light district.

[7:00] Mark Peikert: In 2002, a revival of Flower Drum Song opens on Broadway, with a new book by Tony-winning playwright David Henry Hwang, who addresses what he calls long-standing ethnic sensitivities about the show.

[7:15] Mark Peikert: In 2013, Roger Rees stars in the Roundabout Theater Company's revival of Terrence Rattigan's The Winslow Boy. Lindsay Posner directs a cast that also features Michael Cumpsty, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, and Alessandra Nivola.

[7:32] Mark Peikert: On October 18, 1966, Barbara Harris, Alan Alda, and Larry Blyden star in The Apple Tree, three one-act musicals about men, women, and temptation. Written by Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick and directed by Mike Nichols, it runs for 463 performances.

[7:51] Mark Peikert: In 1999, Once on This Island opens on Broadway at the Booth. LaChanze, Jerry Dixon, and Keisha Lewis Evans star in the musical about Caribbean fairy tales and the collision of two cultures as a young French-Antillian woman falls in love with an American aristocrat.

[8:09] Mark Peikert: In 2001, the blockbuster musical Mamma Mia opens on Broadway with a record advance sale. Built around 1970s disco hits by the rock band ABBA, it runs for almost 14 years.

[8:23] Mark Peikert: And in 2018, the world premiere of The Lifespan of Effect opens on Broadway at Studio 54. The play follows a determined young fact-checker, Daniel Radcliffe, whose editor, Jerry Jones, assigns him to check an essay by an Orthodox writer, Bobby Cannavale.

[8:41] Mark Peikert: For more theater history, visit Playbill.com. And for more great podcasts, visit BroadwayPodcastNetwork.com.