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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 5th through October 11th.

[0:16] Mark Peikert: On October 5th, 1944, Celeste Holm stars in the new musical Bloomer Girl, opening on Broadway at the Schubert. Set on the eve of the Civil War, Holm plays Evelina, the daughter of a hoopskirt manufacturer who supports the feminist movement to replace hoopskirts with bloomers, and refuses to marry her southern suitor until he frees his slave. With songs by Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg, and choreography by Agnes DeMille, it runs 654 performances.

[0:46] Mark Peikert: In 1955, The Diary of Anne Frank opens at the Cort. The drama is based on the manuscript left behind by a young Jewish girl during the Holocaust. Susan Strasberg stars as Anne, and the show runs 717 performances.

[1:03] Mark Peikert: In 1960, Laurence Olivier stars in Beckett at the St. James. Anthony Quinn plays King Henry to Olivier's Thomas Beckett. The King's younger son is played by Kit Colkin, future father of Macaulay Culkin. Peter Glenville is the director, and the production runs 193 performances.

[1:31] Mark Peikert: Beryl Reid, Eileen Atkins, and Lally Bowers star, and the show runs 205 performances. Although a screen version starring Audrey Hepburn, Catherine Hepburn, and Bette Davis is reported by Variety as in the making, the film comes out in 1995. The Sondheim-George Firth musical Company is revived by the Roundabout Theatre Company. It stars Boyd Gaines, Veanne Cox, Jane Krakowski, and LaChanze. The new song "Marry Me a Little" is added in this revival, which runs 68 performances.

[2:08] Mark Peikert: In 2006, the first Broadway revival of A Chorus Line opens, with Michael Bennett's original staging and choreography recreated by Bob Avian and Baayork Lee.

[2:20] Mark Peikert: In 2008, 13, the middle school set musical with songs by Tony Award winner Jason Robert Brown, opens at the Bernard B. Jacobs. A 13-member cast of actual teenagers tells the story of a boy facing his 13th birthday and Bar Mitzvah in a new town. The cast includes future pop star Ariana Grande.

[2:43] Mark Peikert: In 2014, The Curious Incident of The Dog in the Night-Time, Simon Stephens' adaptation of Mark Haddon's best-selling novel, opens at the Ethel Barrymore, starring Alex Sharp and directed by Marianne Elliott.

[2:58] Mark Peikert: On October 6th, 1974, Bernadette Peters and Robert Preston open in Mac and Mabel. Jerry Herman wrote songs and lyrics, Gower Champion staged, Michael Stewart wrote the book, and stars Peters and Preston receive rave reviews. Despite all that, the production runs only 66 performances at The Majestic.

[3:19] Mark Peikert: In 1977, The Gin Game opens at the John Golden. The play, directed by Mike Nichols, is about a frustrated couple, Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy, in a nursing home who find themselves playing a not too friendly game of cards. Tandy wins a Tony Award for her performance, and the play wins the 1978 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

[3:41] Mark Peikert: Another Pulitzer Prize winner for drama opened in 1998 with Margaret Edson's drama Wit. The play, which focuses on a woman's struggle with fourth stage ovarian cancer, was directed by Derek Anson Jones and starred Kathleen Chalfant.

[3:58] Mark Peikert: In 2009, Donmar Warehouse's dark and wintry production of Hamlet, directed by Michael Grandage and starring Jude Law as The Prince of Denmark, opens on Broadway at the Broadhurst.

[4:11] Mark Peikert: In 2013, Andrew Lippa and John August's musical Big Fish, a father and son tall tale, opens at Broadway's Neil Simon. Directed and choreographed by Susan Stroman, it stars Norbert Leo Butz, Bobby Steggert, and Kate Baldwin.

[4:28] Mark Peikert: In 2015, Clive Owen and Eve Best star in a revival of Harold Pinter's Old Times, opening at the Roundabout Theater Company's American Airlines Theater.

[4:40] Mark Peikert: In 2016, Holiday Inn, the new Irving Berlin musical, opens on Broadway at Studio 54. Bryce Pinkham, Laura Lee Gayer, Megan Lawrence, Megan Sikora, and Corbin Bleu star in the musical inspired by the classic 1942 film.

[4:56] Mark Peikert: On October 7, 1943, the unlikely collaboration of Kurt Weill, Ogden Nash, and S.J. Perlman results in a hit musical, One Touch of Venus, about a man who brings a statue of the Roman goddess of love to life. The show runs 567 performances, partly owing to the appeal of its Venus, Mary Martin, in her first starring role.

[5:20] Mark Peikert: In 1948, Love Life, one of the more interesting musical experiments of the post-war years, opens at the 46th Street Theater. Billed as a Vaudeville, it contains sketches about love stretching from the 18th century to the present. Lots of talent is involved, music by Kurt Weill, lyrics by Alan J. Lerner, directed by Elia Kazan, choreography by Michael Kidd, starring Nanette Fabray and Ray Middleton. It runs 252 performances.

[5:44] Mark Peikert: In 1982, the Winter Garden Theater hosts the opening of what will become one of the most successful musicals in the history of the world, Cats. Andrew Lloyd Webber's rendition of the T.S. Eliot collection of poems, Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, boasts advanced sales of 6.2 million before it even opens. The show has sound and special effects galore, no dialogue, and a diva in the making, Betty Buckley, singing its most memorable tune, "Memory." By the time it closes on September 10th, 2000, the production has played 7,485 performances.

[6:28] Mark Peikert: In 2001, the bong and dance musical Reefer Madness, based on the cult anti-marijuana film of 1936, opens off-Broadway, starring Christian Campbell, Greg Edelman, and Michelle Pawk.

[6:43] Mark Peikert: On October 8th, 1946, José Ferrer unveils his landmark production of Cyrano de Bergerac, introducing his Tony-winning performance in the title role, in the first year Tonys were given, which he later recreates to Oscar-winning effect on film.

[6:59] Mark Peikert: In 1961, An Evening with Mike Nichols and Elaine May showcases the two wits in an evening of memorable sketches at the John Golden. It runs 306 performances.

[7:12] Mark Peikert: In 1979, Mickey Rooney and Ann Miller join forces for the burlesque-style Broadway revue Sugar Babies, which runs over 1,200 performances.

[7:24] Mark Peikert: In 1998, Matthew Bourne delights and scandalizes Broadway with an all-male interpretation of the ballet Swan Lake, in a production that takes the central character out clubbing in London. Bourne wins the Tony Awards for Best Choreography and Best Direction of a Musical.

[7:35] Mark Peikert: On October 9th, 1967, Tom Stoppard makes a splash in his Broadway debut, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, which tells the story of Shakespeare's Hamlet entirely from the point of view of two of its minor characters.

[7:54] Mark Peikert: In 1972, Dude, Jerome Ragney and Galt McDermott's musical follow-up to Hair, opens on Broadway and runs 16 performances.

[8:06] Mark Peikert: In 2014, Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick, Stockard Channing, Megan Mullally, and Rupert Grint eagerly await the reviews in Terrence McNally's comedy, It's Only a Play, a spoof on what it takes to make a show a hit, opening at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theater.

[8:23] Mark Peikert: On October 10th, 1935, George and Ira Gershwin collaborate with DuBose Heyward on the opera Porgy and Bess, which runs just 124 performances on Broadway, but goes on to a long life in revivals, repertory, and film.

[8:48] Mark Peikert: It runs 140 performances and earns Davies a Tony nomination.

[8:55] Mark Peikert: On October 11, 1948, Ray Bolger, best known as The Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz, opens in Where's Charlie at the St. James. The story, adapted by George Abbott, is based on the hit play Charlie's Aunt, and is set to music by Guys and Dolls genius Frank Loesser.

[9:13] Mark Peikert: In 1958, Donald O'Connor and Elaine Stritch star in the musical Goldilocks, set in the world of silent films, opening at the Lunt-Fontanne. Walter Kerr, drama critic at the New York Herald Tribune, directs and co-writes the book with his wife, Jean Kerr. Agnes de Mille choreographs, and the musical's two featured performers, Russell Knipe and Pat Stanley, both win Tony Awards.

[9:37] Mark Peikert: And in 1984, Charles Dutton and Teresa Merritt star in August Wilson's first big Broadway success, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, opening at the Court. For more theater history, visit Playbill.com. And for more great podcasts, visit BroadwayPodcastNetwork.com.