1935 (90 years ago)
Playwright Mart Crowley was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi, on Aug. 21. He is best known for his groundbreaking play The Boys in the Band, which centered on a group of gay men at a birthday party in New York City. The play premiered Off-Broadway in 1968 and was hugely successful, running for more than two years and a total of 1,001 performances, and winning two Obie Awards. The 2019 production won the Tony for Best Revival of a Play. Crowley used the success of The Boys in the Band to transition to film and television, where he worked as a writer and producer.
1955 (70 years ago)
On Aug. 15, the actors Stanley Prager, George Tyne, Sarah Cunningham, and John Randolph were questioned by the House Un-American Activities Committee for suspected communist activity during the height of McCarthyism. All four actors refused to answer the committee’s questions, with all but Tyne citing the Fifth Amendment. The Meriden Record reported on the hearing, and Prager was quoted saying, “I believe what I say and with whom I associate is not this committee’s concern.” Tyne, meanwhile, charged the committee with “trying to control and censor what should appear on the stage in America.” The actors were all blacklisted. Cunningham and Randolph were not cast again until the late 1960s.
1965 (60 years ago)
Viola Davis was born in Saint Matthews, South Carolina, on Aug. 11. Davis first studied at Rhode Island College, where she graduated with a degree in theatre in 1988. She then studied at Juilliard for four years as part of the Drama Division Group 22. She made her Off-Broadway debut in a 1992 production of Shakespeare’s As You Like It, and made her Broadway debut four years later in the premiere of August Wilson’s Seven Guitars, for which she was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play. Though she transitioned to acting for television and film in the 2000s, she has returned to the stage often, winning Tonys for her work in August Wilson’s King Hedley II and Fences.
1980 (45 years ago)
The hit musical 42nd Street premiered on Broadway on Aug. 25. The meta-theatrical show, based on the 1933 film of the same name, follows the production process of a Broadway musical during the Great Depression. The show was an immediate success. Tragically, its director and choreographer, Gower Champion, died the morning of opening night; producer David Merrick announced Champion’s death at the curtain call. The production went on to win the 1981 Tonys for Best Musical and Best Choreography (awarded to Champion posthumously) and was nominated for six others. The production ran for almost nine years, closing on Jan. 8, 1989, after 3,486 performances.
2020 (5 years ago)
On Aug. 10, deep in Covid-19 lockdown, a schoolteacher named Emily Jacobsen posted a 10-second clip on the social media app TikTok called “Ode to Remy,” a satirical song extolling the virtues of Remy, the main character of the 2007 Pixar film Ratatouille. The video went viral. Daniel Mertzlufft added an orchestral composition to the video. Soon other TikTok users were adding their own songs and creating an entire musical, which they called Ratatousical or Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical. In January 2021, Seaview Productions presented Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical as a charity benefit concert on New Year’s Day. Working alongside the original TikTok creators, Lucy Moss directed the concert featuring Titus Burgess, Wayne Brady, Adam Lambert, and more performing. The event raised over $2 million for the Actors Fund.
