On this day 17th February

On this day 17th February

1976 Opening night for legendary flop Rockabye Hamlet. Cliff Jones' rock musical version of Shakespeare's tragedy runs 7 performances at the Minskoff Theatre. The cast includes Larry Marshall as Hamlet, Beverly D'Angelo as Ophelia (who commits suicide by strangling herself with her immense microphone cord), and Meat Loaf as a Priest.

1982 Instructor-teacher Lee Strasberg, the foremost advocate of Method acting, dies at the age of 80. "Art is longer than life," he once said, and his style of acting lives on at his Lee Strasberg Institute of the Theatre in both New York and Los Angeles.

1999 The Drama Desk organization officially celebrates its 50th anniversary. Six years after its inception, the Drama Desk Awards were created to recognize excellence in not only Broadway, but Off-Broadway theatre as well.

2003 Walloped by a blizzard that drops more than 20 inches of snow in Times Square, several Broadway shows cancel performances.

2015 Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda's musical exploring the life of American Founding Father Alexander Hamilton, opens Off-Broadway at the Public Theater. Miranda stars in the title role, alongside a cast that includes Brian d'Arcy James, Phillipa Soo, Christopher Jackson, and Leslie Odom, Jr. Following its sold-out run at the Public, it transfers to Broadway in July of the same year. Hamilton goes on to win 11 Tony Awards, including Best Musical, and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.