Play Dates
Okay, you’ve all got your new calendars up. You’ve marked Mom and Dad’s anniversary. You’ve added your sister’s birthday and your brother’s graduation, too. Good start! But if you’re a real musical theater enthusiast, you’ll also want to make note of some other dates. Such as:
January 6: The Jeffersons need Joanne home — without Maureen! — for a January 8 luncheon to promote Mrs. Jefferson’s confirmation hearings, which begin on January 10.
January 12: A son is born to Michael and Agnes at one minute after two in the morning — six hours following her confinement — in Room 22 of the new city hospital. He weighs 16 pounds and 14 ounces, and he’s named after Michael.
January 14: Roxie Hart tells Fred Casely that she and Amos are going to have a baby, and it’s all over between them. (At least, that’s what she tells the court
happened.)
January 22: In 1944, a night to remember — yeah, that’s for sure. For that’s the night when Peron first met Eva.
February 9: In 1964, Sparky, Smudge, Jinx, and Frankie, driving en route to the Airport Hilton Cocktail Bar, are broadsided by a bus filled with Catholic girls
and are immediately killed.
February 14: Valentine’s Day. Mimi finally returns from being out tonight.
February 15: In 1933, Bystanders #1, #2, and #3 explain how they saved Roosevelt.
February 18: In 1932, Annie inspires FDR and his cabinet to create a New Deal (which will start tomorrow).
March 2: Winter exits in Camelot.
March 3: Springtime begins in Camelot. Lancelot is unable to leave Guenevere.
March 4: On this Inauguration Day in 1877, Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant isn’t happy that she soon won’t be first lady, while Mrs. Rutherford B. Hayes can’t wait
to assume the post.
March 15: Robert Charles Joseph Henry Mills III — Bobby — is born in 1950 in upstate New York near Buffalo, where years later he’ll decide that suicide is redundant.
March 20: The day before spring.
March 21: Spring is here. Peter Pan shows up at the Darling residence to pick up Wendy so she can do his spring cleaning.
March 29: In 1951, the opening of The King and I, in which King makes teacher travel far, learns what Western manners are, et cetera, et cetera. The end!
April 10: In 1912, the three Kates meet as they board the Titanic.
April 17: A daughter is born to Michael and Agnes at two after four in the morning, five hours following her confinement, in Room 22 of the new city hospital. She weighs five pounds and 13 ounces, and they say she looks like Agnes.
April 26: In 1913, an Old Soldier is called to tell about the life that he led in the Old Hills of Georgia.
May 1: The lusty month of May begins, coincidentally enough, on the one day when Moscow is very gay.
May 8: In 1776, Congress demands that John Adams sit down as he’s consternated by how much they piddle, twiddle, and resolve.
May 12: At that luncheonette, the young wife sees Tom first and then he smiles. She won’t forget.
May 14: Israel’s Independence Day is the perfect time to do an Independence Day Hora.
May 15: In the jungle of Nool, in the heat of the day, in the cool of the pool, Horton hears a Who.
May 20: Liza Doolittle Day.
May 24: Tommy and Jeff land in Brigadoon — and find that they’re in 1746.
May 25: In 1950, Marcel Dusoleil writes his mother to say that his cat is doing fine and, no, he hasn’t found a wife.
May 27: On the 27th day in the merry month of May in 1867, Mrs. Machin gently smiles as she looks upon her child and thanks the Lord in heaven.
May 31: In 1889, one little raindrop starts the Johnstown Flood (in Pennsylvania).
June 1: Ivy Smith begins her month-long reign as Miss Turnstiles.
June 6: Corny Collins holds a contest for Miss Hairspray 1962.
June 7: In 1776, six colonies are for independence and six are against it, while New York abstains courteously.
June 13: Richie Walters — he’s black — is born in Herculaneum, Missouri in 1948, under a full moon.
June 21: Summer is a-comin’ in! Irene Molloy starts wearing ribbons down her back. Catherine begins her summer in Ohio with a gay midget named Karl playing Tevye and Porgy. Lancelot is still unable to leave Guenevere.
June 22: In 1776, Adams and Franklin bring Samuel Chase to New Brunswick to see how the American army is faring.
June 25: In 1906, Harry K. Thaw, a violent man, kills Sanford White in what most people call “The Crime of the Century” — although Emma Goldman, aware that the century has 94 years to go, begs to differ.
June 28: In 1838, just before Queen Victoria is coronated, Mack the Knife is pardoned.
July 1: The weather is not too hot in Camelot and it stays that way for the entire month.
July 2: In 1776, seven colonies are for independence and five are against it, while New York abstains courteously.
July 4: The Declaration of Independence is ratified by all 13 colonies, with New York no longer abstaining courteously.
July 9: In 1951, Mike Costa — used to be Costafalone — is born in Trenton, New Jersey.
July 15: Norma Desmond’s astrologer says that Venus will be in Capricorn, thus making filming of Norma’s movie finally advisable.
July 17: After the show, Sam rides Donna over to the little island. They dance on the beach and kiss on the beach and…dot-dot-dot.
July 18: Mickey and Edward Johnstone — make that Edward Lyons — are born.
July 25: In 1975, A Chorus Line opens and Edward Kleban, class act that he is, is embarrassed by “What I Did for Love.”
July 26: Evita’s death is announced in 1952 at a cinema in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
August 1: The weather continues to be not too hot in Camelot and stays that way through August.
August 2: In 1943, Gregory Gardner — a/k/a Sidney Kenneth Beckenstein (Jewish name Rochmel Lev Ben Yokov Meyer Beckenstein) is born.
August 8: In 1946, Sheila Bryant — really Sara Rosemary Bryant — is born in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
August 15: Harry turns up out of the blue, so Donna says that she’ll show him the little island. (She must need her head examined.)
August 17: In 1950, Maggie Winslow — sometimes known as Margaret, Margie, Peggy, all of the above — is born in San Mateo, California.
Labor Day: The mother of Littlechap’s Ginny Romaine is sorry.
September 4: Violet leaves on her trip to Tulsa.
September 12: Crissy meets Frank Mills in front of the Waverly.
September 13, 11:56pm: Jekyll has started this alone — and must finish it alone. There is no longer a choice. He knows that he must use himself as the subject of the experiment.
September 14, 5:00am: Jekyll has a strange, new, sweet sensation. He is younger, lighter, happier in body and soul, twice as alive and tenfold more wicked, which intoxicates and delights him like wine.
September 20, 10:50am: Jekyll’s experiments are now in their second week. The transformations are beyond his imagining. Unspeakable nightmares besiege his senses.
September 21: In an early year of a decade not too long before our own, the human race suddenly encounters a deadly threat to its very existence. And this terrifying enemy surfaces, as such enemies often do, in the seemingly most innocent and unlikely of places: A little shop.
September 22: Summer is almost over and the Fresno beauties are being harvested. What’s left of summer but a faded rose?
September 23: Another autumn. Lancelot is still unable to leave Guenevere.
September 25, 8:00pm: Jekyll radically alters the balance of the formula to contain and overcome the powerful and darker forces at work inside him. He is aware of his peril and the need to control Hyde’s evil influence.
September 26: In 1957, West Side Story has one laugh right after the other: the lover of the heroine murders her brother and then, to pay for his folly, gets shot in the stomach for the grand finale.
October 10: In 1722, Fiona MacLaren is born in Brigadoon.
October 12: In 1950, the opening of Call Me Madam. In the middle Europe’s stately halls, Merman throws expensive balls and, every minute, Truman calls. (ring) “Hello, Harry?!” (ring) “Hello, Harry?!” (ring) “Hello, Harry?!” (ring) “Hello, Harry?!” (ring) “Hello, Harry?!” (ring) “Hello, Harry?!” The end!
October 15: In 1917, Mata Hari is put before a firing squad, is shot, falls, dies — and stays dead.
October 22: In 1947, Paul San Marco — a/k/a Ephrain Ramirez — is born in Spanish Harlem.
October 28: In 1886, Miss Liberty is installed.
October 29: In 1929, the stock market crashes. Mame’s stockbroker calls to say hello before he jumps out of window.
October 31: Nine-year-old Eve Harrington — well, Evelyn Hinkle, really — wears a fairy-queen costume of her own design. She puts on rouge and lipstick, though it isn’t allowed. She is so proud till her daddy says, “Wash your face. You look like a whore.”
November 4: Clem Rogers is happy that “It’s a Boy” — for after six girls, William Penn Adaire Rogers is born in 1879.
November 24: In 1950, the opening of Guys and Dolls. Robert Alda bets Sam Levene that he can date a mission queen. Winds up with a tambourine. The end!
November 25: 23rd anniversary of Mark’s All-Male Thanksgiving.
November 30: Patrick Dennis arrives at his Auntie Mame’s.
December 2: When Mame, Patrick, Gooch, and Ito decide they need a little Christmas now — even though it’s “only one week past Thanksgiving Day now.”
December 3: Seymour Krelbourn is scheduled to be on the cover of Life magazine.
December 5: In 4642, the Year of the Chicken, Connie Wong is born in Chinatown.
December 8: In 1949, the opening of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Carol Channing has a plan; Carol Channing gets her man. The end!
December 13: Twelve Days to Christmas.
December 17: Call the principal and hand him the news, we’ve got a holiday that he can’t refuse. A day of harmony, a day of music: Beethoven’s birthday.
December 21: Saggitarian Joe Gillis is born on what is, as Antipholus of Ephesus once noticed, the shortest day of the year.
December 22: Winter begins, along with Max Bia
lystock’s summer stock season. Lancelot is still unable to leave Guenevere.
December 25: The child of Irma La Douce and Nestor is born, but Poor Jennie is orphaned.
December 31: Clifford Bradshaw arrives in Berlin and is wished “Happy New Year, my dear!” by Fraulein Schneider.
********************
[To contact Peter Filichia directly, e-mail him at pfilichia@aol.com]
