Anton Chekhov's Three Sisters has its premiere at the Moscow Art Theatre, directed by Stanislavsky

The play Cathleen ni Houlihan, by W.B. Yeats and Lady Gregory, fosters Irish nationalism

Maxim Gorky's play The Lower Depths is performed at the Moscow Art Theatre

W.B. Yeats heads a group of writers and directors in establishing the Irish National Theatre Society

The Wizard of Oz, based on the book by Frank Baum, opens on Broadway as a musical to huge success

Anton Chekhov's last play, The Cherry Orchard, is staged by Stanislavsky just a few months before the author's death

J.M. Synge's play Riders to the Sea has its premiere at the Molesworth Hall in Dublin

Hughie Cannon writes the music and words for the song originally titled "He Done Me Wrong" in the US musical Frankie and Johnny

J.M Barrie's play for children Peter Pan, or the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up has its premiere in London

Dublin's Abbey Theatre opens as a new home for the Irish National Theatre Society

David Belasco's play Girl of the Golden West has its premiere in New York, where it is seen two years later by Giacomo Puccini

Bernard Shaw has two new plays opening in London in the same year, Major Barbara and Man and Superman

The designer Edward Gordon Craig publishes a theatrical manifesto, The Art of the Theatre

17-year-old Charlie Chaplin joins the Fred Karno company, touring slapstick comedy

6-year-old Fred Astaire and his sister Adele give their first professional performance, in the pier theatre in Keyport, New Jersey

J.M. Synge's Playboy of the Western World provokes violent reactions at its Dublin premiere

Swedish playwright August Strindberg publishes The Ghost Sonata, which has its first performance in Stockholm the following year

Maurice Maeterlinck's The Blue Bird is performed at the Moscow Art Theatre in a production by Stanislavsky

Maurice Chevalier and Mistinguett perform together at the Folies-Bergère

J.M. Synge's last and unfinished play, Deirdre of the Sorrows, is performed in Dublin shortly after his death

Hugo von Hofmannsthal adapts the English medieval morality play Everyman ('Jedermann') for performance in Salzburg

The Russian prime minister Pyotr Stolypin is assassinated in a Kiev theatre

Rudolph Wurlitzer's company in the USA produces the first of its famous movie theatre organs

Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion has its first performance – in a German version in Vienna

The Provincetown Players are founded in Massachusetts, opening with a production of Eugene O'Neill's Bound East for Cardiff