1925 (100 years ago)

Actress, playwright, and director Jeannette Clift George was born in Houston, Texas, on June 1. A distinguished alumnus of the University of Texas at Austin Department of Theatre and Dance, she also held honorary degrees from Dallas Baptist University and Houston Baptist University. While she acted on stage and screen, most famously earning a Golden Globe nomination for her work in The Hiding Place, she also left a lasting legacy on the Houston theatre scene by founding the A. D. (After Dinner) Players Theater Company in 1967. The company produces plays “from a Christian worldview for diverse audiences,” according to their website. George died in 2017 at the age of 92. 

1975 (50 years ago)

The Wooster Group opened their first production, Sakonnet Point, on June 12 and ran until June 27 at the Performing Garage in New York City. Numerous performances followed over the next several years. The performance was composed by Spalding Gray and Elizabeth LeCompte and directed by LeCompte. Willem Dafoe joined the cast of later performances and LeCompte went on to direct more than 50 works with the company. The Wooster Group creates post-dramatic work for theatre, dance, and media. According to professor and theatre researcher Hans-Thies Lehmann in his book Postdramatic Theatre, the Wooster Group’s aesthetic “makes use of video, film, electronic sound effects, microphones, and computer programs to disrupt, fragment, and infract the dramatic text.” The company has been foundational in the word of experimental theatre. 

Also in 1975, City Theatre Company in Pittsburgh (The City Players at the time) opened their first production, the world premiere of The Death and Life of Sneaky Fitch by James L. Rosenberg, on June 19. The original company and production was mainly composed of Carnegie Mellon School of Drama graduates. The City Players was created by the City of Pittsburgh and funded by the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act. The original troupe was based in the newly renovated Allegheny Public Theatre. The City Theatre Company became an independent theatre company in 1988. Today it is a leading organization in producing new work.

1990 (35 years ago)

Falsettoland, a sequel to the 1981 March of the Falsettos, premiered at Playwrights Horizon on June 28. The one-act musical sees the lovable characters of the original show contend with the tragedy of the AIDS epidemic, which would be the No. 1 killer of men aged 25-44 in 1992. With the book by William Finn and James Lapine and music and lyrics by Finn, Falsettoland won the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Musical, the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Lyrics, and the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Off-Broadway Musical. Finn and Lapine later combined March of the Falsettos and Falsettoland to form the full-length show Falsettos, which won the 1992 Tony Awards for Best Book and Best Score. 

2000 (25 years ago)

Luis Valdez’s Zoot Suit received its Chicago premiere at the Goodman Theatre. Inspired by the 1943 “Zoot Suit Riot” in Los Angeles, where Chicano gang members were arrested for a suspected murder, the play uses mambo dancing and original Big Band music by Daniel Valdez to tell the story of Henry Reyna, a gang leader tried for the Sleepy Lagoon murder in Los Angeles. The play premiered in Los Angeles in 1978 and in New York City in 1979, and the film version was released in 1981. Valdez founded El Teatro Campesino (the Farm Workers’ Theater) in 1965 and continues to be a leading voice in Chicano theatre. 

2020 (5 years ago)

The 74th Tonys, originally scheduled for June 7, were postponed indefinitely due to the Covid-19 pandemic. This was the first year since their start in 1947 that no ceremony was held to celebrate the best of Broadway. They were later held on Sept. 26, 2022.