Portal:Theatre

The Blue Flame is a four-act play written by George V. Hobart and John Willard, who revised an earlier version by Leta Vance Nicholson. In 1920, producer Albert H. Woods staged the play on Broadway and on tour across the United States. Ruth Gordon, the main character, is a religious young woman who dies and is revived by her scientist fiancé as a soulless femme fatale. She seduces several men and involves them in crimes, including drug use and murder. In the final act, her death and resurrection are revealed to be a dream. The production starred Theda Bara (pictured), a popular silent film actress who was known for playing similar roles in movies. Critics panned the play, ridiculing the plot, the dialog, and Bara's acting. Theater historian Ward Morehouse called it "one of the worst plays ever written". Bara's movie fame drew large crowds to theaters, and the play was a commercial success, breaking attendance records at some venues. Ruth Gordon was Bara's only Broadway role, and The Blue Flame was one of her last professional acting projects.

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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

John Gielgud (1904–2000) was an English actor and theatre director who, along with Ralph Richardson and Laurence Olivier, dominated the British stage for much of the 20th century. A member of the Terry family theatrical dynasty, he became a star in the West End and on Broadway by the 1930s, appearing in new works and classics. He began a parallel career as a director, and set up his own company at the Queen's Theatre, London. Though he made his first film in 1924 and had successes with The Good Companions (1933) and Julius Caesar (1953), he did not begin a regular film career until his sixties. He appeared in more than 60 films between Becket in 1964 (his first Academy Award nomination) and Elizabeth in 1998. As the acid-tongued Hobson in Arthur (1981) he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He earned a Golden Globe Award and two BAFTAs, and had the rare distinction of winning an Oscar, an Emmy, a Grammy, and a Tony. He broadcast more than 100 radio and television dramas and made commercial recordings of many plays, including ten of Shakespeare's. He was knighted in 1953 and was president of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art from 1977 to 1989.

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• ... that at the Guild Theatre, the higher an actor ascended, the farther they were from stardom?
• ... that at New York City's Apollo Theater, amateurs could be swept off the stage?
• ... that in 2023, car manufacturer Rivian acquired the historic Lynn Theatre in Laguna Beach, California, and converted it into its first showroom?
• ... that Anne Cooke Reid founded the first Black summer theater in the United States?
• ... that C. J. Phipps, the leading theatre architect of the age, was found responsible for the deadliest-ever UK theatre disaster?
• ... that actor George Kunkel portrayed in blackface the character of Uncle Tom, using it at first to promote slavery during the American Civil War but later to attack it, after his views had changed?

When they have a success, the producers think they are brilliant, but when they have a failure, they think the public are fools. — Sacha Guitry

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