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[0:00] Mark Peikert: Well, hello, theatre lover! I'm Mark Peikert, and you're listening to Today in Theatre History for the week of October 26–November 1.

[0:15] Mark Peikert: 1931 is opening night of Morning Becomes Electra, Eugene O'Neill's epic nine-hour reimagining of Greek mythology as a saga of the American Civil War. It runs 150 performances at the Guild Theatre. 2000 is the opening night of David Yazbek and Terrence McNally's The Full Monty, the musical adaptation of the hit British film about a group of unemployed blue-collar workers who become male strippers in order to pay their bills. Featuring Patrick Wilson, Andre De Shields, Kathleen Freeman, and Emily Skinner, it runs 770 performances at the Eugene O'Neill.

[0:53] Mark Peikert: In 2014, The Last Ship, a folk rock musical with music and lyrics by Sting, inspired by the songwriter's own childhood, opens on Broadway at the Neil Simon. Directed by Joe Mantello, it stars Michael Esper, Rachel Tucker, Jimmy Nail, and Sally Ann Triplett. When the musical struggles at the box office, Sting himself joins the cast for a limited engagement, but the musical still closes after only 105 performances.

[1:21] Mark Peikert: October 27, 1995, finds the Public Theater host for a show that recounts African-American history through a tap dance review. George C. Wolfe directs Bring Into Noise, Bring Into Funk in its pre-Broadway run downtown at the Public's Newman Theatre. The show, conceived and choreographed by tap dance kid Savion Glover, transfers to Broadway's Ambassador Theatre in April 1996, where it wins a Tony Award for Best Choreography.

[1:47] Mark Peikert: In 2016, a Broadway revival of William Finn and James Lapine's musical Falsettos opens at the Walter Kerr. Christian Borle, Stephanie J. Block, Andrew Rannells, and Brandon Uranowitz star in the production directed by Lapine, who also directed the show's 1992 original Broadway run.

[2:08] Mark Peikert: On October 28, 2010, the first New York City revival of Tony Kushner's Angels in America, a gay fantasia on national themes, opens off-Broadway at the Signature Theatre. Directed by Michael Greif, the groundbreaking Reagan-era set epic about fictional and historical characters co-mingling in a time of AIDS features Robin Bartlett, Christian Borle, Bill Heck, Zoe Kazan, Billy Porter, Zachary Quinto, Robin Weigert, and Frank Wood.

[2:35] Mark Peikert: On October 29, 1936, Jimmy Durante and Ethel Merman, or is that Ethel Merman and Jimmy Durante, star in the Cole Porter musical Red Hot and Blue, memorable mainly for the PR battle in which both stars demand top billing. Management eventually compromises by crisscrossing their names on the marquee of the Alvin Theatre, where it runs 183 performances, with Bob Hope settling for third billing.

[3:01] Mark Peikert: In 1952, audiences are kept on the edge of their seats as a husband hires a man to kill his wife and dial him for murder, opening at the Plymouth Theatre for a 552-performance run.

[3:15] Mark Peikert: In 1960, Celeste Holm stars in Arthur Laurents' Sleeping Beauty-inspired comedy Invitation to a March, opening at the Music Box. Also in the cast are Eileen Heckart and Jane Fonda. Incidental music is by Stephen Sondheim. Heard of him?

[3:32] Mark Peikert: In 1977, the John Kander and Fred Ebb musical The Act opens at the Majestic. Liza Minnelli is in the lead role, which wins her the 1978 Tony Award as Best Actress in a Musical. The show runs 233 performances.

[3:49] Mark Peikert: In 2002, Sherry Renee Scott plays the title role in Debbie Does Dallas, a musical based on the pornographic film of the same name. Following a sold-out engagement at the summer 2002 New York International Fringe Festival, The Naughty Tuner begins a regular off-Broadway run at the Jane Street Theatre. It continues through February 2003.

[4:11] Mark Peikert: In 2009, Finian's Rainbow, the 1947 showtune-packed musical about an Irishman and his daughter who come to America on a magical quest, opens in a Broadway revival starring Jim Norton, Chuck Cooper, Kate Baldwin, Christopher Fitzgerald, Cheyenne Jackson, and Terry White.

[4:30] Mark Peikert: On October 30, 1940, Ethel Merman knocks them dead in Cole Porter's Panama Hattie, which opens at the 46th Street Theatre for a 501 performance run that introduces the standard.

[4:42] Mark Peikert: In 2003, The Untold Story of the Witches of the Wizard of Oz lands on Broadway as Wicked, heard of it, opens at the Gershwin Theatre. Idina Menzel, who wins a Tony Award for her performance, and Kristen Chenoweth play the witches, with veteran Joel Grey hoofing as the wonderful Wizard of Oz. The production also welcomes back-to-Broadway composer Stephen Schwartz.

[5:12] Mark Peikert: On October 31, 1949, Mark Blitzstein's opera Regina, based on Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes, opens for a 56th performance run at Broadway's 46th Street Theatre.

[5:26] Mark Peikert: In 1956, Rosalind Russell stars in the title role of Patrick Dennis' Auntie Mame, opening at the Broadhurst Theatre for a 639 performance run. The saga of a boy sent to live with his devil-may-care aunt later serves as the basis for the musical Mame. Russell reprises her role in the 1959 film version.

[5:48] Mark Peikert: In 1971, Broadway gets the first revival of Leonard Bernstein, Betty Comden, and Adolph Green's 1944 musical On the Town, which opens at the Imperial. The cast includes Don McEchnie, Bernadette Peters, and Phyllis Newman, but runs for only 73 performances.

[6:06] Mark Peikert: In 2002, Carol Burnett makes her Broadway playwriting debut with her autobiographical Hollywood Arms, co-written with her daughter Carrie Hamilton, who died during the show's tryout. Michelle Pock wins a Tony Award, playing the role based on Burnett's mother, but the show runs just 76 performances at the Cort.

[6:26] Mark Peikert: In 2010, The Scottsboro Boys, the John Kander and Fred Ebb musical that takes the racially insensitive minstrel show of yore and reimagines it to tell the true story of a case of racial injustice, opens at Broadway's Lyceum. Directed by Susan Stroman, the musical tells the story of a group of young men who were falsely accused of raping two white women in Scottsboro, Alabama in 1931. Despite running only 49 performances, the production is nominated for 12 Tony Awards.

[6:56] Mark Peikert: In 2014, Hugh Jackman returns to Broadway in Jez Butterworth's The River, opening at Circle in the Square. Laura Donnelly and Cush Jumbo co-star in the mysterious drama about a man who brings his new girlfriend to a remote cabin for a night of... trout fishing.

[7:13] Mark Peikert: November 1st, 1920 is opening night for Eugene O'Neill's The Emperor Jones, starring Charles S. Gilpin as a one-time railway porter who goes to Africa and rises to become the corrupt head of a new empire there. It runs 204 performances, first at the Provincetown Players Theatre on MacDougall Street, and later Uptown at the Selwyn and Princess Theatres.

[7:35] Mark Peikert: In 1990, a revival of the 1926 musical OK! opens at the Richard Rogers, but the locale has been changed from Long Island to Harlem, with an all-black cast led by Brian Stokes Mitchell. Clive Barnes calls it surprisingly terrific in the Post, but the David Merrick-produced revival runs for only 77 performances.

[7:56] Mark Peikert: In 1994, eight gay men examine their lives as they take weekend holidays in the country in Love, Valor, Compassion. The play, by Terrence McNally, uses humor on the surface but forces viewers to see that AIDS has become a shadow on the lives of contemporary human beings. Joe Mantello directs the production, opening off-Broadway at Manhattan Theatre Club. It moves to Broadway's Walter Kerr in 1995.

[8:21] Mark Peikert: In 2001, Patti LuPone and Peter Gallagher star in a Broadway revival of Noises Off, which earns a Tony Award for Katie Finneran and runs nearly a year.

[8:33] Mark Peikert: In 2015, King Charles III, Mike Bartlett's Olivier Award-winning play that imagines a future in which Britain's current Queen Elizabeth II has passed away and her son, the current Prince Charles, has assumed the throne, opens on Broadway at the Music Box.

[8:50] Mark Peikert: And in 2018, the first Broadway revival of Harvey Fierstein's Torch Song opens at the Helen Hayes, the same theater where the original production played in 1982 when the play was called Torch Song Trilogy and the theater was called The Little Theater. Michael Urie and Mercedes Ruehl star in the roles originally played by Fierstein and Estelle Getty.

[9:10] Mark Peikert: For more theater history, visit legom.com. And for more great podcasts, visit broadwaypodcastnetwork.com.