Portal:Theatre

The King and I is a musical by the team of composer Richard Rodgers and dramatist Oscar Hammerstein II. It is based on the 1944 novel Anna and the King of Siam by Margaret Landon, which derives from the memoirs of Anna Leonowens, governess to the children of King Mongkut of Siam in the early 1860s. The musical relates the experiences of Anna, a British schoolteacher hired as part of the King's drive to modernize his country. Their relationship is marked by conflict through much of the piece, and a love that neither can admit. Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote the musical for veteran star Gertrude Lawrence. Rex Harrison, who played the King in the 1946 movie of Landon's book, was unavailable, so Yul Brynner was chosen. The musical premiered in March 1951 at Broadway's St. James Theatre and ran nearly three years. It was an immediate hit, winning Tony Awards for Best Musical and for Best Actress and Best Featured Actor for Lawrence and Brynner (pictured). A hit London run and U.S. national tour followed, together with a 1956 film for which Brynner won an Academy Award. Professional and amateur revivals of The King and I are staged regularly throughout the English-speaking world.

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• November 1773 – Christoph Willibald Gluck moved to Paris and fused the Italian and French operatic styles, revolutionizing 18th-century opera
• 1 November 1611 – First recorded performance of Shakespeare's play The Tempest was held at the Palace of Whitehall in London, exactly seven years after the first certainly known performance of his tragedy Othello in the same building
• 3 November 1793 – French playwright, journalist and outspoken feminist Olympe de Gouges was guillotined for her revolutionary ideas
• 4 November 1737 – The Teatro di San Carlo in Naples, Italy, currently the oldest active opera house in Europe, was inaugurated
• 6 November 1884 – Death of William Wells Brown (pictured), widely regarded as the first published African-American playwright
• 7 November 1956 – Premiere of Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night, for which he won the 1957 Pulitzer Prize for Drama
• 16 November 1922 – John Barrymore began playing Hamlet on Broadway for 101 consecutive performances, breaking a record previously set by Edwin Booth
• 22 November 1903 – Pope Pius X ended the practice of producing castrati, replacing them with boys

Olivia Shakespear (1863–1938) was a British novelist, playwright, and patron of the arts. She wrote six books that are described as "marriage problem" novels. Her works sold poorly, sometimes only a few hundred copies. Her last novel, Uncle Hilary, is considered her best. She wrote two plays in collaboration with Florence Farr. In 1894 her literary interests led to a friendship with William Butler Yeats that became physically intimate in 1896. Following their consummation he declared that they "had many days of happiness" to come, but the affair ended in 1897. They nevertheless remained lifelong friends and corresponded frequently. Yeats went on to marry Georgie Hyde-Lees, Olivia's step-niece and her daughter Dorothy's best friend. Olivia began hosting a weekly salon frequented by Ezra Pound and other modernist writers and artists in 1909, and became influential in London literary society. Dorothy Shakespear married Pound in 1914, despite the less-than-enthusiastic blessing of her parents. After their marriage, Pound would use funds received from Olivia to support T. S. Eliot and James Joyce. When Dorothy gave birth to a son, Omar Pound, in France in 1926, Olivia assumed guardianship of the boy. He lived with Olivia until her death on 3 October 1938.

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• ... that Lunt and Fontanne retired from Broadway after the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre was renamed after them?
• ... that Tropicana was reportedly the first building in Singapore to contain nightclubs, restaurants, and a theatre?
• ... that in 2023, car manufacturer Rivian acquired the historic Lynn Theatre in Laguna Beach, California, and converted it into its first showroom?
• ... that the projector at the Walter Reade Theater had to be modified to screen Nathaniel Dorsky's short film Triste?
• ... that Village East by Angelika is the only remaining Yiddish theater building in what was once the center of New York City's Yiddish Theatre District?
• ... that a showing of the 1914 film Lord Chumley on the roof of a New York City theatre was canceled with an on-screen announcement due to its 40-minute runtime?

Acting is standing up naked and turning around slowly. — Rosalind Russell

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