| ....... |
| ....... |
 |
|
| Displaying theater Anecdotes: 363 Found |
Likely Toast
"She's not so great," a fellow actress once proclaimed of the legendary Tallulah...
Sober Questions?
Junius Booth was noted for his eccentric nature and penchant for heroin. The age...
Laborious Day
One night, when the director of Peter Pan dismissed the cast after a long...
The Skinny on Acting?
Ethel Barrymore once dispensed some actorly advice to a group of her colleagues:...
David Schwimmer: The Grab
While preparing for their roles in the L.A. production of Turnaround in 2...
Midsummer Night's Dream
Shortly after his acclaimed appearance as Bottom in the television adaptation of...
Elaine Stritch & Noel Cowar...
During a rehearsal one day, Elaine Stritch began to sing, "When the tower of Bab...
Seeking Relief
Peter Ustinov once took his young daughter to see a grand production of Aida (he...
Tosca
"When Stella Roman was playing Tosca in Puccini's opera she was supposed to leap...
Got with the Program?
Following a performance of Peter Pan one evening, a small boy who had bee...
No Reply?
Ada Rehan once played a heroine in a romantic comedy opposite a nervous young ac...
Young Henry Irving
Although Henry Irving's productions at London's Lyceum Theatre earned him a knig...
Richard Burton & Wilfrid La...
Shortly before a matinee performance of Peer Gynt at the Old Vic one day,...
Skinner & Shaw
One day in 1935, Cornelia Otis Skinner, enjoying great success in the title role...
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Robert Benchley once attended the Broadway premiere of an unfortunate play. At o...
Young Peter O'Toole
As a young aspiring actor Peter O'Toole was overjoyed to have landed a bit part ...
Camille
"Somewhere in the world," Clara Morris once remarked, "there is an actor - and a...
Greenwood's Pencil
"In one of the great stage performances of our time Mr Paul Greenwood breathed n...
Steps
During the course of a particularly troubled rehearsal, Herbert Beerbohm Tree di...
Pantomime
W.H.C. Nation holds the dubious distinction of having produced the play attended...
Second Best?
The drama critic James Agate once approached Lilian Braithwaite at a social func...
Imaginary Lover
"Marie Lloyd, given her first and only job as principal girl at Drury Lane [Thea...
Animal Crackers
Though George Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind had written "Animal Crackers" with the ...
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
In April 1967, Tom Stoppard's "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead" premiered ...
Grand Eunuch
Among Richard Rodgers' many celebrated words was his score for "Chee-Chee," a mu...
Scene Stealer (long)
William McGonagall, famed for his mediocrity as a poet, once bought his way into...
Dreadful Performance
Tallulah Bankhead was rather unimpressed by the screen adaptation of Tennessee W...
Winter Guests
Fortunately the debut screening of The Winter Guest was not cursed with t...
Priceless Jest
During Bela Lugosi's funeral, Vincent Price and Peter Lorre went to view the dec...
Joe Job?
At the age of fourteen, Al Pacino saw his first professional theater production ...
Underwhelmed
Many critics were underwhelmed by Jerry Hall's nude turn as Mrs. Robinson in the...
Bastardization?
George Kaufman once peeked into the theater where the actor William Gaxton was s...
Gamut
Katharine Hepburn's early performance in "The Lake" was not universally well-rec...
Classic Shaw
While he was directing Caesar and Cleopatra on Broadway, Sir Cedric Hardw...
Miss Pilgrim's Autographs
"The audiences at the Vic were very lively," John Gielgud once recalled. "There ...
Clap of Thunder
"During a rehearsal for Macbeth at Her Majesty's, Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tr...
Classic Goldwyn
Lillian Hellman's play The Children's Hour opened to raves on Broadway an...
Imperceptibly Ajar
"The door is imperceptibly ajar." Thus reads a stage direction in one of Samuel ...
Jude Law: Cool with Nudity?
"I have no problem with nudity," Jude Law once remarked. "My friend Ewan and I a...
Coral Browne: Golden Phallus
While visiting backstage at the National Theatre one day, Coral Browne was asked...
Amateur Performance
Although Hamlet would later become one of John Barrymore's most famous roles, th...
Once More, Maurice...
As Maurice Barrymore was being laid to rest, the straps supporting the lowered c...
Al Locked Up? (long)
Milton Berle's romance with Joyce Mathews (soon to be his first wife) heated up ...
Sweet Exchange
J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan evolved gradually from the stories which he told...
Fraternal Jesting?
J. M. Barrie was once approached by an inexperienced cast member who was anxious...
Imp of Darkness?
Sarah Bernhardt was once referred to by an American clergyman as "an imp of dark...
Tarzany Performance
Once, early in his acting career, Johnny Weissmuller played a Hindu villain in a...
Ne'er Do Well
Charles Klein's play The Ne'er Do Well was not universally well-received....
Sidelined?
In 1922, Charles Hawtrey directed the debut production of Ben Travers's farce ...
Ingenue
One day Alfred Capus attended a rehearsal during which a certain ingenue (in the...
Plosh!
W. S. Gilbert once fell into conversation with a group of Shakespeare-lovers at ...
Numitorius
"John Gilbert was once called upon at short notice to play the role of the heroi...
Sothern Breeze?
On April 13, 1865, with the Civil War over, orders were given to end the draft. ...
General Advice?
John McCormack, famed for his performance as the naval officer Pinkerton in Pucc...
State Affair
One day at the turn of the millennium, ex-President Bill Clinton
visited a
<...
Japanese Hamlet
In 2003, the Shakespearean actor and director Jonathan Kent directed a curious J...
Play Bill
When Mrs. Jordan, a mistress of William IV who was receiving a thousand pounds a...
Evening at the Improv
In one West End production, A. E. Matthews played a pivotal scene which required...
Ina Claire
Some time after her marriage to the romantic silent screen hero John Gilbert, th...
Mooovie Star?
At the age of 25, Jason Robards, Jr. - among the most frequently Tony-nominated ...
Well-Rounded Actress
On the opening night of one of his plays, Alexandre Dumas was approached by a pr...
Blooming Awful
The head of Bloomingdale's department store in New York once sponsored a Kaufman...
Sleeping Critics? (long)
"Sabinson tells the tale of walking into producer David Merrick's office on open...
Wrong Page
"Dinsdale Landon told today a wonderful story of his days as an assistant stage ...
Cowed?
One afternoon Jane Cowl attended a matinee performance of Hamlet on Broadway. He...
Somerset Mum
"I once found myself in Petrograd and I was excessively bored," Somerset Maugham...
Fitting Attire?
During a rehearsal of the revue "Sigh No More" one day, Noel Coward was dismayed...
Classic Kendal
During a rehearsal one day, Dame Madge Kendal asked a manager to bring a kitchen...
Close Harmony
During a particulary dismal dress rehearsal of Dorothy Parker's play ...
Friendly Reply
George Bernard Shaw once sent Winston Churchill a note inviting him to the debut...
Actor in Training
John Barrymore once played a father who strongly disapproved of his daughter's f...
Swan
At the end of Wagner's opera Lohengrin, a magic swan appears, drawing a b...
Tedious
While attending the premiere of one of his plays at the Theatre Francais with a ...
Pantheon
One day Alphonse Allais was called upon to deliver a lecture on the subject of t...
Great White Way
While visiting Manhattan one evening, G. K. Chesterton was taken to view the bri...
Swelled Head
"Long runs made [legendary actor and theater manager] Beerbohm Tree so fidgety h...
Repertory Company
The small repertory company in which Leslie Howard began his career put on so ma...
Wham!
The Guiness Book of World Records once listed Alexander Woollcott's revie...
King Lear
Eugene Field was once commissioned by the Denver Tribune to review a prod...
Blithe Spirits
During a difficult rehearsal of Blithe Spirit one day, fellow thespians C...
Hundred Years Old
"On one occasion I [William Douglas-Home] gave a quavering, senile performance a...
Idiot's Delight
The legendary stage actor Alfred Lunt became surprisingly unnerved by the sight ...
On With The Show?
"Knowing how fuckingstitious theatre people are, Mr Lawrence Wright announced th...
Billy Crystal: Charlie Brow...
Billy Crystal once worked as house manager on a production of "You're A Good Man...
Hugh Jackman on Broadway
In 2004, Hugh Jackman played the flamboyantly gay Peter Allen on Broadway. He wa...
Groucho Marx: Bad Review
"I didn't like the play," Groucho Marx once remarked, "but then I saw it under a...
John Barrymore: Pinhead (long)
John Barrymore once appeared in a London run of The Dictator, starring Wi...
John Gielgud: Fear
"Rehearsals for Oedipus at the National Theatre were going badly," Michae...
Megan Mullally: @@ps
Megan Mullally: "I was the lead in a Cole Porter musical set in 1920s Paris when...
Gentle Puck
As a teenager, Mickey Rooney played Puck in a stage version of Shakespeare's ...
Alphabet Soup
One evening Johnny Mercer attended a British musical which proved rather indiges...
Evening at the Improv
One day during his stint with a Berlin theater troupe, Karl Wilhelm Unzelmann wa...
Fishy Story
Irked during a performance by a large group of coughing visitors, John Barrymore...
Cold Comfort
"On the first night of that unfortunate play Henry James's ...
Whore of Babylon
Scandalized clergymen across the United States demonized Sarah Bernhardt from th...
Saint George?
Rehearsals for the American premiere of Shaw's Saint Joan went swimmingly...
Lamb's Farce
The debut performance of Charles Lamb's farce "Mr. H" was an abject failure. Wat...
Herman J. Mankiewicz: Romeo...
Herman J. Mankiewicz, convinced that Three Comrades would make more money...
Devilish Devlin
"No actor is more exciting to watch than the mould-breaking Irish thespian Alan ...
Eighty Years On
On July 9, 1968, the playwright Alan Bennett recorded the following entry in his...
Beauty and the Beast
One day Shirley Temple told her young daughter Lorax (who later became a bass pl...
Cupboard
New York Times drama critic Clive Barnes once attended a mediocre play ca...
Broad-Minded?
Norm Macdonald was once confronted with a tricky question while appearing as a c...
Brothers Ashkenazi
A friend of Maurice Schwartz once overheard someone accusing him of monopolizing...
Stage Fright
One night in 1944, a V-2 rocket exploded outside the London theater where Alfred...
Tragic Actor
William MacReady, whom Hazlitt once dubbed the best tragic actor of his time, on...
Curse of the Bambino
Although he had led the Boston Red Sox to three pennants in the past six years, ...
Bad Benchley
While attending the premiere of "The Squall" in 1926, Robert Benchley - greatly ...
John Houseman: Master Thespian
At Julliard, Robin Williams and Christopher Reeve briefly studied under the rega...
Tigress
Mrs. Patrick Campbell, famous for creating the role of Eliza Doolittle in George...
Sandman
A young dramatist, eager for Carl Sandburg's opinion, once invited the poet to a...
Miraculous Performance
One evening Noel Coward and Lady Diana Cooper attended a performance featuring a...
Classic Cohn
While writing a pivotal scene one day (in which a business tycoon gives a speech...
Boo Hiss
One evening, Oskar Blumenthal and the critic Ludwig Sternaux attended the debut ...
Inner Sanctum
After three bars of organ music, "Inner Sanctum" opened with the sounds of Raymo...
Hector Elizondo: So Many Words
Hector Elizondo, who was 23 when he first enrolled in acting classes, took "the ...
Speechless
Arthur Roberts was once cast to play the speechless part of a manservant in a ga...
The Change
On March 28, 2001, Jeanie Linders' new musical premiered in Orlando, Florida. "T...
Slaight Problem
While co-starring in "Long Day's Journey into Night" in Washington, Kevin Spacey...
Adapting Shakespeare
Despite Mary Pickford's claim that it had damaged her career, Sam Taylor's adapt...
Cutting Remark
Noel Coward once attended a dreary play clearly written around a fourteen-year-o...
Theatre of Imagination
Actress Ruth Gordon once enthusiastically told George Kaufman about her latest p...
Someone in the House
"Producer George C. Tyler commissioned George Kaufman to adapt Jacques Deval's F...
Small Consolation
During rehearsals for "The Manor of Northstead" it became painfully apparent tha...
Richard Burton: Drunk on Sh...
"Richard Burton once drank a quart of brandy during his performance of ...
James Cagney: Tough Guy
James Cagney, famed for his tough guy persona, was understandably nervous about ...
For God's Sake
While traveling through rural Sussex one day, young Shelley was joined inside a ...
Behan Critical
Brendan Behan was once asked what he thought of theater critics. "Critics are li...
Wit's End?
While performing one evening in a local theater, John Kemble found himself const...
Fine Impression
The actress Henrietta Hodson had a long-running fued with W. S. Gilbert. One day...
Shakespearean Insult
Shakespeare's plays are thought by many scholars to have been written by Francis...
MacBeth
While contemplating a possible revival of "Macbeth" on Broadway, Alexander Wooll...
Radio Craze
In 1936, Jean Harlow starred in a multi-part Lux radio play called "Madame Sans-...
Clear Direction
During a rehearsal of Noel Coward's Hay Fever one day, Dame Edith Evans -...
Great Success
Oscar Wilde was once asked his opinion of a certain widely-panned theatrical pro...
Stage Fright
"Maria Jeritza and Enrico Caruso once appeared together in a production of the o...
Standard Quip
Heywood Broun once composed a review describing the performance of Geoffrey Stey...
Night On the Town
One evening, Sir James Barrie was taken to the theatre by a lady with whom he ha...
O'Toole's Macbeth
"I think the best audience review I heard," Sheridan Morley once recalled, "came...
After the Fall
"Noel Coward was in New York with Claudette Colbert after Arthur Miller's autobi...
Tower
"I [Sir Thomas Beecham] once notified the manager of the theatre at, I think, Ki...
Plays for the Ages
George Bernard Shaw was not without his critics. "Shaw writes plays for the ages...
Scott Wolf: Lincoln Center ...
While starring in the Lincoln Center Theater's production of Frank McGuinness' ...
Classic Coward
Raymond Massey: "Hannen Swaffer, a critic and theatre writer on the ...
Consecrated Ground
On February 17, 1673, Moliere, though desperately ill, insisted on perfoming in ...
Rehearsal
"At the first rehearsal of Dame May Whitty's first entrance in ...
O'Toole's Macbeth
"In September 1980, crowds poured into the Old Vic Theatre in London to see Pete...
Speaight's King John
The great Shakespearean actor Robert Speaight once played the title role in a pr...
Synged
John Synge's The Playboy of the Western World was not universally well-re...
Joe Queenan & the Camelot I...
"A guy sat down next to me on the Metroliner in Washington and started making ph...
Rupert Everett: Apologies
While appearing in a West End production of a Noel Coward play early in his care...
Oink
In May 2004, Moenchengladbach opera director Bernd Mottl auditioned several pigs...
Young Brendan Fraser: HMS P...
"By 12, [Brendan Fraser] was in London, and this is where he first made contact ...
Tim Roth: Debut Performance
While studying sculpture at the Camberwell School Of Art, 17-year-old Tim Roth a...
Robert Ballard: Titanic in ...
"I was here [in Las Vegas] with Robin Williams," Billy Crystal once recalled. "W...
Sharon Lawrence: Theatre Bl...
Sharon Lawrence was once asked about her most embarrassing moment. "I danced off...
Neil Simon: Prolific Playwr...
"Once Neil Simon finally got his first play Come Blow Your Horn, produced...
Jack Palance: Lucky Break?
During his run (as Stanley Kowalski) in the Broadway production of "A Streetcar ...
Kevin Spacey: Phone-Free Zone
As artistic director of London's Old Vic theatre, Kevin Spacey regularly issued ...
Ben McKenzie: Tree Thing
"I was doing children's theater, summer stock, up in the Williamstown Theater Fe...
David Hyde Pierce: Rain in ...
"I did a play, The Cherry Orchard, a Chekhov play which we took on tour t...
Peter Bowles: Jeep Bottom
For his role as a wolf in the Christmas pantomime "Little Red Riding Hood" early...
Hugh Jackman: Lap Dance
One day in 2004, Dominic Dunne attended the final matinee performance of ...
A Horse! A Horse!
One evening the great tragedian Barry Sullivan was performing in "Richard III" i...
Edwin Booth: Evening at the...
While performing a duel scene in a play one day, Edwin Booth, whose character wa...
Hello! Othello!
Junius Booth was famed for his eccentric nature and penchant for heroin. One eve...
Hairy Situation
Michael T. Weiss once appeared in an experimental play entitled "Hair" in northe...
Prompt Response?
Eugene Klopfer once forgot his lines on stage and paused for the prompter, Frau ...
Dumb Luck?
Paralyzed with stage fright, Colley Cibber badly botched his first dramatic role...
Arsenal Midfielder
Arsenal midfielder Freddie Ljungberg once sought to answer allegations that he w...
Russell Crowe: Rocky Horror
While touring Australia and New Zealand with a theater company (in his mid-twent...
Less Than Zeppo?
While the Marx Brothers were working on Broadway, Zeppo, the straight man (and t...
Branagh V? (long)
Vincent Canby's famous description of Kenneth Branagh as a "nervy young man in a...
Cruel to be Kind
One day Kenneth Branagh's mother, who had never seen a play, remarked, "I must b...
Tour de Force
Lynn Fontanne co-starred in many theatrical productions with her husband Alfred ...
To Be or Not to Be?
"Hamlet was to have been played at the Richmond Theatre by an inexperienc...
Joe Easter Egg
"Eddie Izzard nearly missed the second act of his new Broadway show,
'A Day in...
Flying Ants
One day theatrical producer David N. Morton received a telegram informing him th...
Fun at 75?
John Barrymore was once asked by a young newspaper reporter whether he still fou...
Hamlt
"When I was living in Brighton I often used to go up to London to see a play," H...
Playful Direction
A young actor playing in a minor role opposite Junius Booth in ...
Fruit of the Womb
An admirer of Sarah Bernhardt's, once complained that the actress always appeare...
Wishing Well?
A child prodigy, William Betty's early stage success inspired such a multitude o...
Wake Up Call
During the reading of a lengthy speech at a rehearsal of Voltaire's latest play ...
Anything Goes!
Before landing her role (as Meadow) on "The Sopranos," Jamie-Lynn Sigler perform...
I Walk with Ira?
In 1948, Burt Lancaster starred in a Lux radio dramatisation of a work entitled ...
Jungle Terrace
While entertaining Laurence Olivier in Jamaica one year, Noel Coward took him to...
Christina
After she had abdicated the Swedish throne, Christina, traveling south to Innsbr...
Eli Wallach: Lump
At the 1964 Broadway opening of "Luv," Eli Wallach and a fellow performer were d...
Lapse of Memory
"Frank Benson suffered wonderful lapses of memory. As Caliban, one of his effect...
Rector's
In the early 1900s, Rector's was New York's most popular and fashionable after-t...
Classic O'Hara
Robert Benchley once bumped into John O'Hara (known to many as the "master of th...
Railway Scene
"My wife, Gladys Cooper, was playing at Leeds with Seymour Hicks," Herbert Buckm...
Author's Advance
The producer George Edwardes was once asked for an advance which would enable a ...
Erros
In 1946, Godfrey Tearle performed in Anthony and Cleopatra at the Piccadi...
Sophie Okonedo: 900 Oneonta
In 1994, Sophie Okonedo appeared in a West End production of a play called "900 ...
Ensemble Performance (long)
"The Edinburgh Festival fringe was set alight in 1983 by an outstanding producti...
Theatrical Footnote
Although Laurence Olivier, often named the finest actor of the 20th Century, was...
Maeterlinck Tragedy
One evening Tallulah Bankhead accompanied Alexander Woollcott to see one of Maet...
Much Ado About Drinking
In February 2003, Prince Harry, who drank so much that he was barred from a pub ...
Dramatic Moment
On the opening night of The Vortex in Washington, D.C., Lilian Braithwait...
Critical Director
For many years, the great Shakespearean actor Henry Irving ran the Lyceum theatr...
Rogier Philipoom: Hooligans
While touring with a theatre company in March 2001, Dutch actor Rogier Philipoom...
O! Romeo?
In 1990, Mel Gibson surprised the skeptics with a fine turn in the title role of...
The French Touch
The French Touch, starring Arlene Francis and Brian Aherne, had its memor...
Bored Stiff
Frederick William IV once attended the performance of a painfully boring play. L...
Histrionics
"Mr. William Shakespeare was born at Stratford upon Avon in the county of Warwic...
Now There's a Concept
Kenneth Branagh's decision, at the age of 26, to form his own Renaissance Theatr...
Kenneth Branagh: Sheer Maud...
Never one to back down from a challenge, Kenneth Branagh once accepted a dare to...
Kenneth Branagh: Corpsing
Following a performance as Hamlet at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford ...
Doublet Take
Patrick Stewart, fearful of being forever typecast as Captain Jean-Luc Picard of...
Fork You?
Though Kenneth Branagh once called himself a "short-assed, fat-faced Irishman," ...
Curtain Call
The debut performance of Shaw's Arms and the Man (on April 21st, 1894) wa...
Black Comedy
Peter Shaffer's Black Comedy examines the consequences of the lights goin...
Old Vic VO?
One day while appearing in a West End production of Eugene O'Neill's "The Iceman...
Train of Laughter
"During the intensely dramatic scene in [Arnold Ridley's play] ...
World Apart?
King George VI and Queen Elizabeth once attended a Noel Coward-Gertrude Lawrence...
Hamlet Actor
One day during the 1950s, Robert Atkins was asked what he thought of John Nevill...
Macbeth & the Pentagon
In 2004, a wasted alliance of the Pentagon and the National Endowment for the Ar...
Butterflies
Dennis Christopher once appeared opposite Farrah Fawcett in "Butterflies Are Fre...
Cloris Leachman & Katharine...
Cloris Leachman once appeared in a play ('As You Like It') with the late, great ...
Manure?
In September 2002, one of the biggest hits in the history of Parisian theatre - ...
Sister of the Mother
"I remember going to the theatre in Athens," the journalist Peter Page once rema...
Challenge
On September 17th, 2000, a stage musical based on Dr. John Gray's bestselling se...
Turn-Ups
"Occasionally front rows talk animatedly, just as they might in their living roo...
Smar-r-rt R-r-reply
During an audition one day Jerome Kern began to lose his patience with an actres...
Playhouse
Seeking more creative control, Robert Ludlum decided to become a producer. Havin...
Lineless Pirate
"Arthur Bourchier gave Robert Morley his first job as an elderly, lineless pirat...
Complimentary Tickets
Ferenc Molnar and a friend were once given complimentary tickets to a rather med...
Saint Joan
One day George Bernard Shaw received a telegram from an actress intent on appear...
Forsooth!
"Oh, greatly daring Mr. Shaw," The Times declared after the debut of Geor...
L'Amour
Catherine Martin was a designer at Sydney's National Institute of Dramatic Art (...
School for Scandal
Richard Cumberland, a writer of sentimental comedies which fell out of favor as ...
Unto the Breach
While filming Shakespeare's Henry V (1944), Laurence Olivier, in the titl...
Royal Royalties
On her fifth birthday Princess Margaret entertained Peter Pan author Jame...
Queen of Wit
As a stunt to publicize the debut of a play in which Lady Diana Cooper was set t...
Mousetrap
"Richard Attenborough, who played Detective Sergeant Trotter in the first 700 pe...
Doge of Venice
"As the Doge of Venice I secured the biggest laugh of my theatrical career," Wil...
Hairy Moment
"During the desperate twelve hour dress rehearsal for the first performance of ...
Difficult Speech
"In the theatre one of the all-time great Upmen is Wilfrid Hyde-White. When I [R...
Red Ink
Robert Morley was once approached by a small group of American theatre producers...
Sienna Miller: Born Actress
Sienna Miller: "I've wanted to be an actress for as long as I can remember, and ...
Drama School
"I learned two things at drama school," the character actor Wilfrid Hyde-White o...
Young Julia Stiles: Debut P...
Young Julia Stiles, who once wrote to New York Mayor Ed Koch demanding more garb...
Dopey School?
Courtney Thorne-Smith got her first taste of acting in a production of "Snow Whi...
Young Richard Avedon
"In the 1930s, Richard Avedon's mother bribed ticket takers and sneaked them int...
Judy Dench Tribute
While playing the role of Loren in David Williamson's Up For Grabs at Wyn...
Amanda Bynes: Bloomers Blooper
"Once, when I was doing The Secret Garden," Amanda Bynes recalled, "I had...
Elton John: Blood Sucking
"The latest news from Broadway," Conan O'Brien announced in May 2003, "is that E...
Mischa Barton: Theater Blooper
"I did 'Twelve Dreams' at the Lincoln Center when I was 12 or so," Mischa Barton...
Brian Cox: Gravitas
"In The Rookie, [Brian Cox] was the overbearing father of a baseball prod...
Nicole Kidman: Spring Awake...
"While the other girls were down the beach, eyeing up the boys, Nicole Kidman sp...
Christopher Lee: Lights!
"1948 brought Christopher Lee's first roles. It also brought his first crushing ...
Ian McKellen: Theatrical Debut
After graduating from Cambridge in 1961, Ian McKellen began his apprenticeship a...
Geoffrey Rush: Wedding Prop...
"In 1988, Geoffrey Rush married stage actress Jane Menelaus and, for their honey...
Daniel Day-Lewis: Hamlet Mo...
In the middle of a performance one evening, Daniel Day-Lewis suddenly left the s...
Michael Caine: Professional...
Young Michael Caine began his theatrical career as a stage manager and occasiona...
Sarah Jessica Parker: Broad...
Sarah Jessica Parker's most embarrassing moment came during a Broadway performan...
Elizabeth Taylor: Private L...
Elizabeth Taylor once starred in a stage production of Noel Coward's ...
John Gielgud & Laurence Oli...
"I don't really know what jealousy is," John Gielgud once remarked, before corre...
Brooke Shields: Wonderful Town
Brooke Shields's run on Broadway (in "Wonderful Town") was not without its share...
Michael Frayn: Kabuki Moment
"Once, on a visit to Japan, [the playwright Michael] Frayn went to see a Kabuki ...
John Gielgud: Feeling Better
John Gielgud visited Richard Burton during his debut performance of the title ro...
Carol Vorderman: Ziegfeld F...
"One day we were recording 'Countdown' in the Yorkshire Television studios in Le...
Noel Coward: Amusing
At a party one evening, Noel Coward met a British actress who disliked him becau...
Arthur Lucan: Arthur Has Died
During a play in 1954, Arthur Lucan suddenly died on stage. The Management calle...
Tallulah Bankhead: Rain
Despite her performances in more than a dozen plays in London, Tallulah Bankhead...
Jane Kaczmarek: Tighty Whiteys
Jane Kaczmarek once appeared in a play called "Dinner with Friends" about a husb...
Classic Beerbohm
While rehearsing the dramatised version of The Eternal City with Herbert ...
Beerbohm Tree... Oscarized
When Beerbohm Tree, having played the role of Lord Illingworth (in Oscar Wilde's...
Playboy of the Western World
The debut production of The Playboy of the Western World - John Synge's t...
Gilbert Logic
During a rehearsal one day, the playwright W. S. Gilbert was in the process of b...
Monkey Business
"Tallulah Bankhead's role in Conchita was that of as dark-skinned Cuban d...
Control Freak
At the height of her career, Dame Ellen Terry starred in a production whose fuss...
Young Producer
Richard Attenborough first donned the producer's mantle when he staged a perform...
Young Ben Stiller: Attempts...
"Amy and Ben Stiller were not kept away from their parents' work [Jerry Stiller ...
Mametspeak
David Mamet, famed for the rhythmic nature of his profane, highly theatrical dia...
Stage Designer
One day George Kaufman found himself reluctantly shopping with his second wife, ...
Dog Daisies
"In the little Philip Theatre in Sydney where I played for thirteen weeks in 195...
Feydeau's Debut
Georges Feydeau's early comedies were not universally well received. At one part...
Mel Brooks & The Producers
The success of The Producers prompted Mel Brooks to adapt the classic fil...
Dead Awful
One evening the famous Fleet Street journalist and spiritualist Hannen Swaffer a...
Guest Worker
While touring the Soviet Union with the original cast of the Stratford Festival ...
Windsor
In 1917, George V declared that he was changing the surname of the royal family ...
Understated Director
Joyce Carey accompanied Noel Coward to the first night of Leslie Howard's ...
Stage Fright
"Jean-Louis Barrault's first part was that of Dullin's servant in Ben Jonson's <...
Flabby Direction
In Eugene O'Neill's play Where the Cross is Made, he gives the following ...
Gielbad?
"John Gielgud's first production was the Oxford University Dramatic Society's ...
Doodle-Bugs
"If last Thursday the public paid £600, and this Thursday they have paid only £5...
Sirocco
Noel Coward was once asked whether he had ever despaired when faced with a failu...
In Which We Serve
"As an 18-year-old novice, released from RADA [Royal Academy of Dramatic Art] to...
Experienced Eye
One day on the set Ethel Barrymore was interrupted in her dressing room by the y...
Madonna: Bad Material
In May 2002, Madonna appeared in her debut performance as a grabby art dealer in...
Burton & Churchill
One evening Winston Churchill attended a performance of Hamlet with Richa...
Dadaist Play
The surrealist poet Paul Eluard once wrote a Dadaist play: The curtain rises. Tw...
Ali Larter & the Vagina Mon...
Ali Larter once spent several months in New York performing in Eve Ensler's cele...
Farrah Fawcett on Broadway
"There were times when I had thirty-eight seconds," Farrah Fawcett once recalled...
Wilfred Lawson: Unscripted ...
"Wilfred Lawson... was allegedly the originator of a famous, unscripted line in ...
Eric McCormack: TV Thespian
"Will & Grace" star Eric McCormack first found his own style during his fifth se...
Melina Kanakaredes: Greek F...
In 2003, "C.S.I.: NY" star Melina Kanakaredes appeared in "Cabaret" on Broadway....
Laurence Fishburne: Cell Phone
During a Broadway performance one day, Laurence Fishburne was interrupted by a r...
Dame Edna & Sandy Duncan
During her "Royal Tour" in 1999, Dame Edna Everage regularly told her audiences ...
Queen Lear?
As a young woman, Victoria once attended a performance of King Lear. When (havin...
Sondheim's Company
"At the interval of Stephen Sondheim's Company at Her Majesty's, a Knight...
Srh Brnhrd?
Sarah Bernhard was a scrawny seventeen-year-old girl when she debuted in the tit...
Dunnot
Samuel Beckett was once asked to explain the significance of the title character...
Quick Study
The famed stage director Alan Schneider once had a spot of trouble with a certai...
Hugh Grant: Student Drama
"Growing up in suburbia, Hugh Grant won a scholarship to Oxford, going up to New...
Three Musketeers
"I saw Edmund Teale in The Three Musketeers at the Grand Theatre, Leeds,"...
Angry James
"Henry James was complaining to us that Ellen Terry had asked him to write a pla...
Shakespeare Festival
In 1796, David Garrick organized a festival at Stratford to commemorate the bice...
Greasy Polack
On the opening night of A Streetcar Named Desire in 1947, Tennessee Willi...
Breath
Breath, one of Samuel Beckett's lesser-known works, was first performed i...
Upstaged
John Gielgud once asked Fred Terry for some acting advice. Gielgud, it seemed, w...
Walk This Way
"In one of the scenes in Walk This Way, Gracie Fields was a maid waiting ...
Match Thief
"I understudied Sir George Alexander in The Admirable Crichton in 1914," ...
Property Birds
"Irving was intending to use, for a new production, a cage of 'property' birds w...
Sensitive Actor (long)
"Beerbohm Tree always seemed to have heard the lines of the other perfomers for ...
George Bernard Shaw & Ellen...
One day at the turn of the 19th Century, Dame Ellen Terry, complained, "Now I am...
Katharine Hepburn: Gross In...
In Cecil Beaton's 'Fair Lady' (1964), the famed photographer fondly recal...
Captain Oates' Left Sock
In 2004, "EastEnders" star June Brown (Dot Cotton) was amused to learn that Dudl...
Ingmar Bergman:
Ingmar Bergman and Lars Löfgren (former director of the Royal Dramatic Theatre i...
Eddie Izzard: Night at the ...
Eddie Izzard once appeared in a play with Victoria Hamilton. "Because Victoria H...
Fredric March: Oops
In 1938, Fredric March and Florence Eldridge appeared in a heavily panned play e...
George S. Kaufman: Miscast
While directing rehearsals for of his plays, George S. Kaufman decided that a ce...
Optimist
"Recently I heard two men at the National Theatre discussing a forthcoming play ...
Cantankerous Playwright
Alan Ayckbourn once appeared in a play directed by Harold Pinter. While preparin...
Via Galactica
"After a career packed with theatrical triumphs Sir Peter Hall, the British dire...
The Dirt
While attending a press conference in Cordoba in May 2003, Argentinian actor Fer...
Piano Man
One day in 1969, Keith Carradine accompanied his half-brother, David, to an audi...
Jester Prince
England's fun-loving Prince of Wales (who later became King Edward
VII) was fon...
David Belasco
"The master of theater realism was the producer David Belasco. For ...
Curtains for Jack
"The first time Jack Buchanan appeared on the music-hall stage he 'got the bird....
Theatre Critic
"It might be an altogether charming musical," New York Times theater crit...
First Night
"Edward My Son began its run at His Majesty's on May 30, 1947. It was wri...
Antigone
Sarah Brown, famed for her role as Carly on "General Hospital," once fell down a...
Theatre Critic
Theatre critic Burton Bascoe once wrote that he had been sickened by the perform...
Young England (long)
"At the age of eighty-three the Reverend Walter Reynolds wrote ...
Iris
"Only a couple of years before Alzheimer's enveloped Iris Murdoch in a cloud of ...
Leave It to Me
Ethel Merman was once asked her opinion of Mary Martin's performance in a Broadw...
Our Town
One evening Alexander Woollcott went to see Thornton Wilder's moving play ...
Young Kathy Bates: Wayside
After making her screen debut (as Bobo Bates), a struggling Kathy Bates tried re...
Regicide
Sitting in a tavern one day, Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher were working out...
Doomed Play
The actor Louis Calhern once starred in the debut of an obviously doomed play in...
Bernhardt and Campbell
"In Pelleas and Melisande, when Sarah Bernhardt and Mrs Patrick Campbell ...
Young McDormand
One of Frances McDormand's high school English teachers, impressed with her stud...
Helen Hayes: Birthday Song
"In 1924, a songbook editor changed the lyrics to 'Happy Birthday to You' and pu...
Barker's Critics
The playwright Howard Barker was no great fan of the National Theatre. "I submit...
Young Jennifer Aniston
"One of the first jobs I was pretty psyched about," Jennifer Aniston once recall...
Young Brian Cox: Welcome to...
14-year-old Brian Cox knew he had found his metier after passing the local theat...
Willem Dafoe: Ship's Stoker
"[Willem Dafoe] played the enraged ship's stoker in Eugene O'Neill's ...
Judi Dench & Edward Woodward
"Judi Dench has a highly advanced sense of humour, as proved way back in 1965 in...
Tim Roth: Made In Britain
"Cycling home from Soho one day, [Tim Roth] got a puncture, outside the Oval Hou...
Princess Margaret: Sibling ...
Despite being four years younger than Elizabeth, Princess Margaret was hardly a ...
Handkerchief
One day Queen Elizabeth attended William Shakespeare's new play. The mischievous...
Journeys Among the Dead
"The audience for last Thursday's performance of Eugene Ionesco's ...
Young Andrew Allan
"The virtual father of Canadian radio drama [Andrew Allan], honoured for his act...
Thunder
Having decided that a scene in Appius and Virginia called for a clap of t...
Bad Review
Dismayed that one of his actors had given an abominable performance one day, W. ...
Hume Cronyn
Hume Cronyn once found a novel way of "congratulating" colleagues on their lackl...
Wells Drama
"On the first occasion when I met H. G. Wells," the actor Ernest Thesiger later ...
Midsummer's Nice Dream
"We opened in Auckland, New Zealand, with Hamlet," Ronald Pertwee recalle...
Matthew Perry: Financial Pe...
In April 2003, Matthew Perry - scheduled to star in a West End production of "Se...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
[Back To Browsing/Searching page] |
|
|
 |
Web Design Abacus, © Anecdotage.com: Famous People. Funny Stories.
Jokes and funny stories about celebrities
. |
| |
