Celebrated as the co-originator of among the very advanced musicals on the Broadway stage, James Lapine was born on January 10, 1949, in Mansfield, Ohio. He moved on to Pennsylvania and California for school, and finally landed in The Big Apple, where he was employed as a freelancer, including as ...

The son of Venetian celebrities, Giovanni Giacomo Casanova directed to enter priesthood as a young man, studying in the Seminary of St. Cyprian in Padua. Not long after registering in the institution, he was expelled for his bawdy behaviour, so he returned to Venice, where he served a Roman Catholic ...

The family moved to Schenectady, Ny, where Shirley grew up with her older sister. Their mom was employed as a laundress and dad as a cab driver. Belgium was also a boxer, and is credited as instilling a feeling of stamina in his tiny daughter. Shirley fell for serious automobile racer ...

Johnny Robinson lived in Birmingham, Alabama, in which a bomb set at the 16th Street Baptist Church killed four African American girls on September 15, 1963. Though his departure was overlooked for a long time, Robinson is now recognized as being part of the Civil Rights Movement. Produced circa 1947, Johnny ...

Produced on December 6, 1949, Virgil Ware grew up in Alabama at a period when the South was broken up by battles between supporters of racial equality and segregationists. Following a church bombing killed four girls on September 15, 1963, two white teens shot and killed Ware the exact same ...

After earning a master’s degree, she moved to Montgomery, Alabama, to instruct at Alabama State College. She directed an effective city bus boycott that got national interest as well as the support of Martin Luther King Jr. Following her dad’s passing, 6-year old Jo Ann and her family relocated to Macon. ...

Produced in 1922, Gloria Richardson grew up in Cambridge, Maryland. She espoused the importance of economic justice and strategies beyond nonviolent protests. When she was six years of age, her family moved to Cambridge, Maryland. As a teen, she attended Howard University, where she studied sociology and participated in several demonstrations ...

Produced on May 1, 1924, in Washington, D.C., Evelyn Boyd Granville became just the second black woman to earn a Ph.D. in math. Granville embarked on a 30-year career as a professor in 1967, and continued to support mathematical studies after retiring in the classroom. African American mathematician and teacher ...

Mickey Cohen was born on September 4, 1913, in Brooklyn, Ny, and grew up in La. Following a troubled youth, Cohen’s first links with top Jewish and Italian mobsters came during his teen years, through his participation in the boxing game. During the Great Depression he packaged professionally, and acted ...

In the 1970s, he raped and murdered young women in a number of states. He was linked to at least 36 homicides, but some believed he’d perpetrated one hundred or more. His appeal and wisdom made him something of a star during his trial, and his case inspired many novels ...