1905 (120 years ago)

Actor Maurice Barrymore died at the approximate age of 57 on March 26. Born in India as Herbert Arthur Chamberlayne Blythe, his exact birthday is uncertain. He found success as an amateur boxer before he made his acting debut in London. In 1875, he moved to the United States and took Maurice Barrymore as his stage name. He married actress Georgiana Emma Drew and together they had Lionel Barrymore, Ethel Barrymore, and John Barrymore. All three children had long and successful acting careers, cementing the Barrymores as a theatrical family. John’s granddaughter, Drew Blythe Barrymore, continued the acting tradition when she appeared in Steven Speilberg’s E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial at age 7. 

1930 (95 years ago)

Stephen Sondheim was born on March 22. Sondheim began working on Broadway as the lyricist on Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story. When the musical opened, Sondheim was only 27 years old. Sondheim continued to work as a lyricist, including for the musicals Gypsy and Do I Hear a Waltz?, but with A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum in 1962, he made his debut as a composer/lyricist, and continued from there. His shows Company, A Little Night Music, and Sweeney Todd all won the Tony Award for Best Musical, and his influence and impact has only grown in the years since his death in November 2021 at the age of 91. His last musical, completed by David Ives, premiered in 2023 with the title Here We Are.

1935 (90 years ago)

The Group Theatre’s Waiting for Lefty opened at the Longacre Theater on March 26 and ran for 144 performances. Inspired by the 1934 New York taxi strike, playwright Clifford Odets attended a meeting of cab drivers during which Samuel Orner, the president of the drivers’ union, was speaking. Orner later noted that many of the lines in the play were taken straight from the meeting. Productions of Waiting for Lefty appeared in 32 cities simultaneously. The simplicity of the set and costumes made it easy to mount, and its portrait of villainous capitalists and downtrodden workers resonated with audiences in the throes of the Great Depression.

1955 (70 years ago)

Bus Stop, written by William Inge and directed by Harold Clurman, opened at Music Box Theatre in New York City on March 2 and ran for 478 performances. In the play, a bus leaving Kansas City gets caught in a snowstorm and stops at a roadside diner, where its various passengers, confined to the diner, enact romantic, quasi-romantic, and altogether platonic relationships. An expansion of Inge’s one-act play People in the Wind, Bus Stop collected four Tony nominations, including for play, direction, scenic design, and featured actress for Elaine Stritch’s performance, though it won for none of them. Inge’s other well known plays include Picnic and Come Back, Little Sheba.

2005 (20 years ago)

A Traveling Jewish Theatre’s Blood Relative premiered in San Francisco. The collaboratively devised play followed a character named Ibi, who has an Israeli mother and a Palestinian father. Ibi’s ancestors visit him in his apartment and tell him stories, which are based on interviews with Arabs and Jews conducted in Israel by playwright Aaron Davidman. The central character was based on and portrayed by actor Ibrahim Miari, who shared Ibi’s mixed identity. Davidman called it “the most challenging theatrical project [he had] ever undertaken.” The impact of the 2008 financial crisis led to the company’s closure after its 35th season. Years later, Davidman continued to explore the conflict in a solo performance titled Wrestling Jerusalem at Mosaic Theater Company of D.C.