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Trial by Jury is a comic opera in one act, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It was first produced on 25 March 1875, at London's Royalty Theatre, where it initially ran for 131 performances and was considered a hit, receiving critical praise and outrunning its popular companion piece, Jacques Offenbach's La Périchole. The story concerns a "breach of promise of marriage" lawsuit in which the judge and legal system are the objects of lighthearted satire. Gilbert based the libretto of Trial by Jury on an operetta parody that he had written in 1868. The opera premiered more than three years after Gilbert and Sullivan's only previous collaboration, Thespis, an 1871–72 Christmas season entertainment. In the intervening years, both the author and composer were busy with separate projects. Beginning in 1873, Gilbert tried several times to get the opera produced before the impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte suggested that he collaborate on it with Sullivan. Sullivan was pleased with the piece and promptly wrote the music. Critics and audiences praised how well Sullivan's witty and good-humoured music complemented Gilbert's satire. The success of Trial by Jury launched the famous series of 13 collaborative works between Gilbert and Sullivan that came to be known as the Savoy Operas.

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• 1 February 1902 – Birth of Langston Hughes, who wrote several plays and founded the Skyloft Players to nurture black playwrights
• 3 February 1869 – Edwin Booth's Booth's Theatre opened with Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet
• 19 February 1704 – Ichikawa Danjūrō I (pictured), an early and influential kabuki actor, was stabbed and killed onstage by fellow actor Ikushima Hanroku
• 22 February 1972 – Red Detachment of Women, one of the eight model plays, was performed for Richard Nixon during his trip to China
• 24 February 1607 – Premiere of Claudio Monteverdi's L'Orfeo, which is the earliest operatic work that is still performed today
• 27 February 1877 – Premiere of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, which received poor reviews
• 28 February 1915 – Birth of Obie and Tony winning actor Zero Mostel
• 29 February 1948 – Birth of writer and director Mamunur Rashid, who won the Bangla Academy Literary Award for drama in 1982

Hattie Jacques (1922–1980) was an English comedy actress of stage, radio and screen, known to a world-wide audience through her portrayals of strict, no-nonsense characters in 14 of the Carry On films. She started her career on stage at the Players' Theatre, London, before progressing onto radio, where she appeared in three popular BBC series, It's That Man Again, Educating Archie and Hancock's Half Hour. Her cinematic debut—in Green for Danger—was brief and uncredited, but she grew to have a prolific screen career. Jacques developed a long professional stage and television partnership with Eric Sykes, with whom she co-starred in the long-running series Sykes and Sykes and a.... The role endeared her to the public and the two became staples of British television. Her private life was turbulent: she was married to the actor John Le Mesurier from 1949 until their divorce in 1965, a separation caused by her five-year affair with another man. Jacques, who had been overweight since her teenage years, suffered ill-health soon after the separation from Le Mesurier. She died in 1980 of a heart attack.

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• ... that fans of the musical Rent would sleep outside the Nederlander Theatre to get cheap front-row tickets?
• ... that during the first tour to the Soviet Union by any American ballet company, Lupe Serrano danced the first encore in the American Ballet Theatre's history?
• ... that the Beacon Theatre, once described as "a true bit of Bagdad on Broadway", later gained a reputation as a rock venue?
• ... that at New York City's Apollo Theater, amateurs could be swept off the stage?
• ... that an unfinished cut of Revolution+1, a film about the life of the suspected assassin of former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, was released in theaters the day before Abe's state funeral?
• ... that although the Liberty Theatre was built in 1904 to host the Rogers Brothers' musicals, the brothers made their last appearance there three years later?

The theater is a great equalizer: it is the only place where the poor can look down on the rich. — Will Rogers

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