#OTD in 1886.
The first performance of William Gillette's American Civil War drama Held by the Enemy is held at the Criterion Theater, Brooklyn, New York.
The play was a major step toward modern theater, in that it abandoned many of the crude devices of 19th-century melodrama and introduced realism into the sets, costumes, props, and sound effects.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Gillette
William Gillette at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/38243
#OTD in 1869.
Booth's Theatre opens on Manhattan with the owner, Edwin Booth, playing the male lead in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.
Some reports said it was one of the most elaborate productions of Romeo and Juliet ever seen in America; it was certainly the most popular, running for over six weeks and earning over $60,000 (equivalent to $1,000,000 in 2023).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romeo_and_Juliet
Romeo and Juliet at PG:
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/1513
#OTD in 1920.
Federico García Lorca's first play, The Butterfly's Evil Spell (El maleficio de la mariposa) is poorly received at its première in Madrid.
With only four performances, very poorly received by the public, including booing, it was a total failure for its author. The text, written in verse, is a parable about frustration, love and death; recurring themes in Lorca's work.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Butterfly%27s_Evil_Spell
Garcia Lorca at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/56772
#OTD in 1914.
A staging of George A. Birmingham's comedy General John Regan at Westport Town Hall in Ireland provokes a riot, as the crowd objected to the depiction of what they felt was a mocking representation of their town (where the writer served as an Anglican clergyman).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_John_Regan_(play)
General John Regan at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24073
#OTD in 1907.
The poet W. B. Yeats, at a public debate at the Abbey Theatre, denies trying to suppress audience distaste during a performance of The Playboy of the Western World.
The Playboy of the Western World is a three-act play written by Irish playwright John Millington Synge, first performed at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, on 26 January 1907.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Playboy_of_the_Western_World
The Playboy of the Western World at PG:
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/1240
#OTD in 1844.
The first three of many theatrical adaptations of A Christmas Carol open in London.
An early theatrical production was A Christmas Carol: Or, the Miser's Warning!, a two-act adaptation of A Christmas Carol by C. Z. Barnett, first produced at the Surrey Theatre on 5 February 1844, just weeks after the publication of the novella.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptations_of_A_Christmas_Carol
A Christmas Carol at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/46
#OTD in 1854.
An adaptation of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice into Bengali, Bhānumatī-chittavilās by Hara Chandra Ghosh, is staged; also, Dinabandhu Mitra introduces Falstaff in Nabin Tapaswini.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Merchant_of_Venice
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Falstaff
At PG:
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/1515
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1780
#OTD in 1924.
Seán O'Casey's drama Juno and the Paycock opens at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin. It is set in the working-class tenements of Dublin in the early 1920s, during the Irish Civil War period.
It is the second of his "Dublin Trilogy" – the other two being The Shadow of a Gunman (1923) and The Plough and the Stars (1926).
#OTD in 1873.
The first performance of W. S. Gilbert and Gilbert Arthur à Beckett's play The Happy Land at the Royal Court Theatre, London parodies William Ewart Gladstone, Robert Lowe, and Acton Smee Ayrton, respectively the prime minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and First Commissioner of Works.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Happy_Land
W. S. Gilbert at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/395
Happy birthday Shakespeare (born #OTD in 1564)!
#OTD in 1932. To mark Shakespeare's birthday:
The Royal Shakespeare Company's new theatre opens at Stratford-upon-Avon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Shakespeare_Company
The Folger Shakespeare Library opens in Washington, D.C.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folger_Shakespeare_Library
Shakespeare at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/65
#OTD in 1900.
New York performances of the play Sapho curbed for immorality. It is based on an 1884 French novel of the same name by Alphonse Daudet and an 1885 play by Daudet and Adolphe Belot. It was at the center of a sensational New York City indecency trial involving the play's star and producer/director, Olga Nethersole.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapho_(play)
Sapho by Alphonse Daudet at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13825
#OTD in 1885.
José Echegaray's play La vida alegre y muerte triste opens in Spain.
Along with the Provençal poet Frédéric Mistral, Echegaray was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1904, after having been nominated that year by a member of the Royal Spanish Academy, making him the first Spaniard to win the prize.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Echegaray
José Echegaray at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/40983
Why Oscar Wilde’s Play About a Biblical Temptress Was Banned From the British Stage for Decades
“Salome,” a one-act tragedy by the Irish playwright, terrified the Victorian public with its provocative depiction of a teenage girl whose lust for a man quickly morphs into bloodlust
By E.R. Zarevich
More information about Salomé:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salome_(play)
Salomé at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1339
#OTD in 1896.
While Oscar Wilde is in prison, his play Salome (written in 1891) is premièred in its original French by Lugné-Poe's Théâtre de l'Œuvre company in Paris, perhaps at the Comédie-Parisienne. Because the play depicted biblical characters it was banned in Britain and was not performed publicly there until 1931.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salome_(play)
Salomé at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1339
#OTD in 1891.
Henrik Ibsen's play Ghosts (published in 1881) achieves a single London performance, its English-language stage première (at the Royalty Theatre). To evade the Lord Chamberlain's Office's censorship, it has to be staged privately by the Independent Theatre Society, but still attracts strong criticism on moral grounds.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghosts_(play)
Ghosts at PG:
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/2467
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/8121
#OTD in 1794.
The rebuilt Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, in London, designed by Henry Holland, opens to the public.
Actress Sarah Siddons, then part of the Drury Lane company, called it "a wilderness of a place". Not only was any sense of intimacy and connection to the company on stage lost, but the very size of the theatre put a great deal of the audience at such a distance from the stage so as to make hearing a player's voice quite difficult.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theatre_Royal,_Drury_Lane#Third_theatre_(1794)
#OTD in 1873.
The first Azerbaijani play The Adventure of a Miser (The Adventures of the Vizier of the Khan of Lenkaran) by Mirza Fatali Akhundov is performed by Hasan bey Zardabi and dramatist Najaf bey Vazirov. This was the beginning of the Azerbaijani theatre's history.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventures_of_the_Lankaran_Khanate_Vizier
Original play in Azerbaijani is available here
https://web.archive.org/web/20220301123449/http://www.anl.az/el/emb/M.F.Axundzade/eserleri/kitab/mfa_svxlenkeran.pdf
#OTD in 1889.
Henrik Ibsen's symbolic drama The Lady from the Sea (1888) receives simultaneous first performances in Oslo (in Norwegian) and Weimar (in German). The drama introduces the character of Hilde Wangel who is again portrayed in Ibsen's later play The Master Builder.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lady_from_the_Sea
The Lady from the Sea at PG:
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/2765
"Conscience is but a word that cowards use,
Devis'd at first to keep the strong in awe;
Our strong arms be our conscience, swords our law."
King Richard, scene iii
#OTD in 1817.
Junius Brutus Booth makes his stage debut in the title role of Shakespeare's Richard III at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden in London.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_III_(play)
Richard III at PG:
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/1503
#OTD in 1851.
The first performance of Rigoletto by Giuseppe Verdi takes place in Venice. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the 1832 play Le roi s'amuse by Victor Hugo.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rigoletto
Le Roi s'amuse at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29549
#OTD in 1889.
August Strindberg's naturalistic drama Miss Julie (Fröken Julie), 1888, is first performed, by the Scandinavian Experimental Theater at the University of Copenhagen. His wife Siri von Essen plays the title rôle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Julie
Miss Julie at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14347
#OTD in 1920.
The Blue Flame, a four-act play by George V. Hobart and John Willard after Leta Vance Nicholson, opens at the Shubert Theatre on Broadway before a year's U.S. tour. Though described by a critic as "one of the worst plays ever written," it is a commercial success, largely due to Theda Bara as the central character of a vamp.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blue_Flame_(play)
George V. Hobart at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/4454
"Ce n'est pas une cause
Que j'attaque ou que je défends
Et ceci n'est pas autre chose
Que l'histoire d'un pauvre enfant."
#OTD in 1900.
Sarah Bernhardt stars in premiere of Edmond Rostand's l'Aiglon. The title of the play comes from a nickname for Napoleon II, the French word for "eaglet" (a young eagle).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Aiglon
L´Aiglon at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/66793
#OTD in 1773.
Oliver Goldsmith's comedy She Stoops to Conquer is performed for the first time, at the Covent Garden Theatre in London.
Initially the play was titled Mistakes of a Night and the events within the play take place in one long night. In 1778, John O'Keeffe wrote a loose sequel, Tony Lumpkin in Town.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/She_Stoops_to_Conquer
She Stoops to Conquer; Or, The Mistakes of a Night at PG:
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/383
#OTD in 1857.
The play Demetrius, left unfinished at Schiller's death in 1805, is premiered at the Hoftheater in Weimar. It is based on the life of Demetrius, briefly Russian czar between 1604 and 1605.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demetrius_(play)
Demetrius at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6800
