Today's Birthdays - 3/6

[do_re_milla]

Posted: 3/5/09 at 6:22pm

Michelangelo 3/6/1475 - 2/18/1564 Italian sculptor, painter and architect, source mat'l, Renaissance artist: Sistine Chapel ceiling; sculptor: The Pieta, David; architect: St. Peter’s [Rome]

Cyrano de Bergerac Savinien 3/6/1619 - 7/28/1655 French dramatist and satirist, French soldier, author: The States and Empires of the Sun; subject of famous play whose title bears his name, Cyrano with Christopher Plummer & Leigh Beery, & has 1 of my fav songs, "You Have Made Me Love"

Elizabeth Barrett Browning 03/06/1806 - Jun 29, 1861 Source Material, Wife of Robert Browning (1846 - 1861) her death - The National Theater of the Deaf - Tyger! Tyger! and other burnings [Original, Play, Drama, Poem, Sign Language], wasn't there a musical based on Elizabeth Barrett & Robert Browning called "Elizabeth and Robert?" I think I have some music in a box somewhere.

Rimsky-Korsakov Nikolay 3/6/1844 - 6/8/1908 Russian composer and editor - The Tsar's Bride

Oscar Strauss 03/06/1870 - Jan 11, 1954 composer - The Chocolate Soldier; Three Waltzes (Kitty Carlisle Hart)

Ring Lardner 03/06/1885 - Sep 25, 1933 Writer, Lyricist, Composer, Source Materia, father of Ring Lardner, Jr. - Ziegfeld Follies of 1922; Elmer the Great; June Moon; Smiles (Fred & Adele Astaire, Marilyn Miller, Harriette Lake [aka Ann Sothern)

Lou Costello 03/06/1908 - Mar 3, 1959 performer - The Streets of Paris; film's Abbott & Costello films; Who’s on First?

Ed McMahon 03/06/1923 performer - The Impossible Years [replacement]; tv's radio/TV announcer, pitchman: The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson, Star Search, The Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon, Budweiser spots, TV’s Most Hilarious Bloopers

Sarah Caldwell 03/06/1924 - Mar 23, 2006 Founding director of the Opera Company of Boston, and the first woman to conduct at New York's Metropolitan Opera. - 1981 Macbeth (Maureen Anderman, Philip Anglim, Kelsey Grammer, J. Kenneth Campbell, Dana Ivey, Jonathan Ward)

Gabriel García Márquez 03/06/1928 writer, A Hundred Years of Solitude, Love in the Time of Cholera - Chronicle of a Death Foretold (Tonya Pinkins

Kiri Te Kanawa 3/6/1944 When I heard her Countess, I thought I'd died & gone to heaven. And her Strauss 4 Last Songs, breathtakingly beautiful! But I also was in the audience (guest of Mirella Freni & Nicolai Ghiaurov) for the Met Centennial, almost a disaster for KTK when she missed the I, II (6/4) V (fake) cadence, & riffed with a brave oboist who guided her back until J. Levine was able to bring the rest of the orchestra back in. Talk about excitement during live performance. This was it! & then there's the story Alberta Masiello told me when I studied with her about KTK, where AM chastised her for having difficulty taking/remembering musical direction & KTK is quoted by AM as saying, "You know Miss Masiello, where I come from, we eat people like you." Always got a kick out of that story. Lordy, I miss Masiello! exquisite musician!

Rob Reiner 03/06/1947 husband of Penny Marshall (1971-1979) divorced, son of Carl Reiner, performer - The Roast (Peter Boyle, Doug McClure [Directed by Carl Reiner]); tv's & film's Emmy Award-winning Best Supporting Actor/Comedy Series: All In the Family [1973-74, 1977-78], Postcards from the Edge, Sleepless in Seattle; director: When Harry Met Sally, This is Spinal Tap, The Princess Bride, A Few Good Men; Primary Colors; The Beverly Hillbillies; Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.; That Girl; The Andy Griffith Show; The First Wives Club

Stephen Schwartz 03/06/1948 Writer, Lyricist, Composer, Director; Father of Scott Schwartz; Graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in 1968 with a B.F.A. in Drama - Butterflies Are Free (Keir Dullea, Eileen Heckart, Blythe Danner, Michael Glaser); Pippin; The Magic Show; Godspell; Working; Rags; Wicked; tv's & film's Enchanted; Godspell: A Musical Based on the Gospel According to St. Matthew; Pippin: His Life and Times; Working; The Hunchback of Notre Dame; The Prince of Egypt; Geppetto; Ugly Betty

Shuler Hensley 03/06/1967 performer, Won Olivier Award for playing Jud in London production of "Oklahoma" (Royal National and Lyceum Theatres, 1998-1999). Aso played "Phantom" in German production of "The Phantom of the Opera". - Les Misérables [replacement]; 2002 Oklahoma; Tarzan; Young Frankenstein

SHOWS THAT OPENED ON THIS DATE:

1967 This is the first time someone says You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown. Cartoonist Charles M. Schulz's characters come to life in this Clark Gesner musical. It will run Off-Broadway at Theatre 80 St. Marks Place for 1,597 performances. 1999 will see a Broadway revival of the show, featuring Kristin Chenoweth as a newly-added character, CB's sister, Sally.

1983 John Byrne's Slab Boys, about workers who are responsible for kneading ground pigments into smooth paint for designers, opens at the Playhouse Theatre on Broadway. The play stars some young men who become Hollywood hotshots: Sean Penn, Kevin Bacon and Val Kilmer.

1999 In 1930s Nazi Germany, a popular musical group with three Jewish members is literally Band in Berlin. The sextet Hudson Shad portray the Comedian Harmonists. This musical, written and co-conceived by Susan Feldman, opens tonight at the Helen Hayes Theatre in New York. Feldman and Patricia Birch share staging duties.

2003 Vincent in Brixton with Clare Higgins & Jochem ten Haaf. Enjoyed this so much, I saw it 2X's.

2008 Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

ON THIS DAY IN:

1836 The Alamo in San Antonio, Texas, fell to Mexican forces after a 13-day siege.

1981 - Walter Cronkite, the dean of American television newscasters, said “And that’s the way it is” for the final time, as he closed the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite. An audience estimated at 17,000,000 viewers saw ‘the most trusted man in America’ sign-off. Cronkite retired after more than 30 years in broadcasting. He was replaced by Dan Rather at the anchor desk.

1985 - Yul Brynner played his famous role as the king in The King and I in his 4,500th performance in the musical. The actor, age 64, opened the successful production on Broadway in 1951.

2003 At midnight, Local 802 of the musicians union goes on strike against nearly all Broadway musicals, shutting them down in a dispute over the minimum number of musicians required at Broadway theatres. In the afternoon, actors and stagehands announce they will not cross picket lines.

(sources: IBDB, IMDB, NYT's ON THIS DAY, 440.com’s Those Were The Days, Playbill.com)

Milla