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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about theater and whether they are true or false. THEATER URBAN LEGEND: Marlon Brando urinated onstage to upstage another actor. Reader Robert S. wrote in to ask me to find the truth behind a famous theater anecdote. He wasn’t even positive WHO the […]

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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about theater and whether they are true or false. THEATER URBAN LEGEND: Edwin Booth saved Robert Todd Lincoln from being hit by a train. People often write about the American Civil War as being a war of “brother against brother.” In the case […]

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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about theater and whether they are true or false. THEATER URBAN LEGEND: A Long Day’s Journey Into Night was released over twenty years earlier than Eugene O’Neill expressly stated that it should. For a man who already had written a number of classic […]

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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about theater and whether they are true or false. THEATER URBAN LEGEND: Eugene Ionesco was inspired to write his first play at the age of 40 while learning English. Eugene Ionesco was one of the more acclaimed playwrights of the “Theatre of the […]

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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about theater and whether they are true or false. THEATER URBAN LEGEND: The idea that Daniel Boone wore coonskin caps came from an 1822 theater production about Boone. Actor Fess Parker portrayed both Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett in popular television series (the […]

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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about theater and whether they are true or false. THEATER URBAN LEGEND: Tennessee Williams’ first published standalone work was a story in the pulp magazine, Weird Tales! Tennessee Williams is one of the most celebrated playwrights of the 20th Century (and one of […]

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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about theater and whether they are true or false. THEATER URBAN LEGEND: Karel Čapek coined the word “robot” in a play. Karel Čapek was one of the notable writers in Czechoslovakia during the 20th Century, and he was especially noteworthy when it comes […]

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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about theater and whether they are true or false. THEATER URBAN LEGEND: Bob Cummings pretended to be from England to get a role on Broadway. Bob Cummings was a popular actor with a career that stretched a number of decades, from the stage […]

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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about plays and playwrights and whether they are true or false. THEATER URBAN LEGEND: William Shakespeare left Stratford-on-Avon in the mid 1580s because he was arrested for poaching deer. For centuries now, there has been one part of Shakespeare’s life that just doesn’t […]

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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about plays and playwrights and whether they are true or false. THEATER URBAN LEGEND: The Pulitzer Prize Committee chose to award no Pulitzer Prize for Best Drama in 1963 rather than to give it to Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Edward Albee’s play, […]