Portal:Theatre/Selected anniversaries

Portal:Theatre/Selected anniversaries/January

January 1748 – Premiere of Yoshitsune Senbon Zakura, one of the three most famous kabuki plays
2 January 1923 – Formation of the School of American Ballet, with George Balanchine as choreographer
13 January 1782 – Premiere of Friedrich Schiller's The Robbers, an overnight sensation and an important work in the Sturm and Drang movement
17 January 1863 – Birth of Constantin Stanislavski (pictured), a Russian actor and director who developed an acting system
28 January 1728 – Premiere of The Beggar's Opera by John Gay, one of the watershed plays of Augustan drama

Portal:Theatre/Selected anniversaries/February

1 February 1902 – Birth of Langston Hughes, who wrote several plays and founded the Skyloft Players to nurture black playwrights
3 February 1869 – Edwin Booth's Booth's Theatre opened with Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet
19 February 1704 – Ichikawa Danjūrō I (pictured), an early and influential kabuki actor, was stabbed and killed onstage by fellow actor Ikushima Hanroku
22 February 1972 – Red Detachment of Women, one of the eight model plays, was performed for Richard Nixon during his trip to China
24 February 1607 – Premiere of Claudio Monteverdi's L'Orfeo, which is the earliest operatic work that is still performed today
27 February 1877 – Premiere of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, which received poor reviews
28 February 1915 – Birth of Obie and Tony winning actor Zero Mostel
29 February 1948 – Birth of writer and director Mamunur Rashid, who won the Bangla Academy Literary Award for drama in 1982

Portal:Theatre/Selected anniversaries/March

1 March 1892 – Birth of American playwright Mercedes de Acosta
6 March 1853 – Premiere of La traviata by Giuseppe Verdi, one of the most famous and influential opera composers of the 19th century
11 March 1959 – Premiere of Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun, the first play performed on Broadway written by an African-American woman
14 March 1885 – Premier of Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera The Mikado at London's Savoy Theatre, where it played 672 performances
15 March 1920 – The Blue Flame, considered one of the worst plays ever performed on Broadway, debuts at the Shubert Theatre
20 March 1828 – Birth of Henrik Ibsen, often called the "father of modern drama", whose plays challenged Victorian morality
22 March 1832 – Death of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (pictured), whose magnum opus Faust was completed the year of his death and published the year after
25 March 1875 – Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera Trial by Jury debuts at London's Royalty Theatre.
26 March 1996 – Syrian playwright Saadallah Wannous was the first Arab writer to present the UNESCO address to the International Institute of Theater on International Theater Day

Portal:Theatre/Selected anniversaries/April

6 April 1947 – First Tony Awards ceremony was held at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City
12 April 1937 – Death of Abdülhak Hâmid Tarhan, an early 20th-century Turkish playwright and poet who was one of the leading lights of the Turkish Romantic period
23 April 1616 – Death of William Shakespeare (pictured), often considered the greatest English playwright
24 April 1884 – Death of Marie Taglioni, who, in La Sylphide, was the first ballerina to dance en pointe for an entire piece
29 April 1968 – Broadway premiere of Hair, which defined the genre of the "rock musical"

Portal:Theatre/Selected anniversaries/May

5 May 1893 – Birth of Ivo Pelay, a prolific Argentine playwright whose musicals helped popularize the tango
9 May 1662 – First recorded performance of a Punch and Judy (pictured) puppet show in England
11 May 1950 – Premier of Eugène Ionesco's La Cantatrice Chauve (The Bald Soprano) at the Théâtre des Noctambules in Paris
14 May 1881 – Birth of actor Julian Eltinge, who became famous for cross-dressing in plays such as The Fascinating Widow and The Crinoline Girl
22 May 1872 – Foundation stone is laid for the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, built especially for the operas of Richard Wagner
25 May 1878 – Premiere of H.M.S. Pinafore, the first big hit by Gilbert and Sullivan
29 May 1934 – Birth of Mexican actor and playwright Nancy Cárdenas
31 May 1957 – Playwright Arthur Miller is convicted of contempt of Congress because he refused to name friends and colleagues who had participated in political activities that the House Un-American Activities Committee might find problematic

Portal:Theatre/Selected anniversaries/June

June 1643 – Molière, considered one of the greatest comedic playwrights in the Western tradition, left his prosperous family and embarked on a theatrical career
6 June 1954 - Birth of Harvey Fierstein, a Tony Award winning American actor and playwright
10 June 1911 - Birth of Terence Rattigan, a British dramatist whose plays include The Browning Version and The Deep Blue Sea
18 June 1979 – Death of Rodolfo Usigli, "the playwright of the Mexican Revolution"
20 June 1703 – Premiere of The Love Suicides at Sonezaki by Chikamatsu Monzaemon (pictured), often considered the greatest Japanese dramatist
21 June 1737 – Licensing Act of 1737 passed, a landmark act of censorship, which gave the Lord Chamberlain the power to approve plays to be staged in England
24 June 1924 – Birth of Efua Sutherland, a foundational figure in modern Ghanaian drama
28 June 1867 - Birth of Luigi Pirandello, the Nobel Prize winning Italian writer of Six Characters in Search of an Author and many other plays

Portal:Theatre/Selected anniversaries/July

July 1996 – First International Festival of Ancient Greek Drama held in Cyprus
9 July 1991 – Premier of Ariel Dorfman's Death and the Maiden, which describes the encounter of a former torture victim with the man she believed tortured her
13 July 1934 – Birth of Wole Soyinka, considered Africa's most distinguished playwright and the first African to win the Nobel Prize in Literature
17 July 1951 – Original Abbey Theatre burned down, the first state-subsidized theatre in the English-speaking world

Portal:Theatre/Selected anniversaries/August

August 1748 – First performance of a bunraku based on the story of Chūshingura written by Takeda Izumo II, Miyoshi Shōraku, and Namiki Senryū
August 1947 – First Edinburgh International Festival took place in Edinburgh, Scotland
8 August 1963 – Opening of the Singapore National Theatre, commemorating the self-government of Singapore
19 August 1953 – Gholam-Hossein Saedi, one of the first modern playwrights of Iran, is arrested during the 1953 Iranian coup d'état
23 August 1920 – Premier of The Bat, a popular and often-imitated comedy-mystery by Mary Roberts Rinehart and Avery Hopwood
24 August 1680 – Establishment of the Comédie-Française (pictured), the only state-run theatre to have its own theatre troupe, by Louis XIV

Portal:Theatre/Selected anniversaries/September

8 September 1955 – Birth of Osonye Tess Onwueme, an important Nigerian playwright whose works focus on social justice
10 September 1892 – Opening of London's Duke of York's Theatre, built for actor-managers Frank Wyatt and Violet Melnotte
11 September 1911 – Opening of the Eltinge 42nd Street Theatre (later the Empire Theatre) with a production of Bayard Veiller's Within the Law
12 September 1866 – Premiere of The Black Crook, often considered to be the first work of modern musical theatre
16 September 1935 – Broadway premier of Ayn Rand's Night of January 16th, a courtroom drama with two alternative endings decided by a jury of audience members at each performance
19 September 1936 – Death of Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande, who brought about a renaissance in classical Indian music
24 September 1910 – Birth of Cao Yu, often regarded as the most important Chinese playwright of the 20th century
27 September 1917 – Opening of the Broadhurst Theatre with a production of George Bernard Shaw's Misalliance

Portal:Theatre/Selected anniversaries/October

October 1971 – Michael Billington, Britain's longest-serving theatre critic, joined The Guardian
1 October 1684 – Death of Pierre Corneille, often called the "founder of French tragedy"
6 October 1952 – Premier of Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap, the longest running show in London's West End
10 October 1881 – Opening of the Savoy Theatre in London, built by impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte
16 October 1854 – Birth of Oscar Wilde, whose plays include Salome and The Importance of Being Earnest
17 October 1896 – First performance of Anton Chekhov's (pictured) The Seagull was booed by the audience and Chekhov decided that he was finished writing plays
23 October 1969 – Announcement that Samuel Beckett won the Nobel Prize in Literature
28 October 1994 – Premier of 'Art', an award-winning play by French playwright Yasmina Reza

Portal:Theatre/Selected anniversaries/November

November 1773 – Christoph Willibald Gluck moved to Paris and fused the Italian and French operatic styles, revolutionizing 18th-century opera
1 November 1611 – First recorded performance of Shakespeare's play The Tempest was held at the Palace of Whitehall in London, exactly seven years after the first certainly known performance of his tragedy Othello in the same building
3 November 1793 – French playwright, journalist and outspoken feminist Olympe de Gouges was guillotined for her revolutionary ideas
4 November 1737 – The Teatro di San Carlo in Naples, Italy, currently the oldest active opera house in Europe, was inaugurated
6 November 1884 – Death of William Wells Brown (pictured), widely regarded as the first published African-American playwright
7 November 1956 – Premiere of Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night, for which he won the 1957 Pulitzer Prize for Drama
16 November 1922 – John Barrymore began playing Hamlet on Broadway for 101 consecutive performances, breaking a record previously set by Edwin Booth
22 November 1903 – Pope Pius X ended the practice of producing castrati, replacing them with boys

Portal:Theatre/Selected anniversaries/December

3 December 1947 – Premiere of Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire, for which he received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1948
6 December 1718 – Birth of Nicholas Rowe, an English playwright and poet who was the first editor of the works of William Shakespeare
7 December 1948 – Birth of Pearl Cleage, an African-American novelist, playwright, and drama teacher
14 December 1925 – Premiere of the modern opera Wozzeck by Alban Berg
16 December 1972 – Premiere of Vijay Tendulkar's Ghashiram Kotwal, a classic of modern Indian theatre
26 December 1606 – First known performance of the play King Lear, a tragedy by William Shakespeare based on the legendary King Lear of the Britons
27 December 1927 – Broadway premiere of Show Boat by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II, called "the greatest step forward in musical theatre"
28 December 1598 – The Theatre was disassembled and rebuilt as the Globe Theatre (pictured) in London