The Passing Show of 1916 is the first of 22 musicals written in the short span of 17 years by the brothers George and Ira Gershwin

The musical Chu Chin Chow opens at His Majesty's Theatre in London and runs for a record 2235 performances

Manchester dramatist Harold Brighouse has a major success when his play Hobson's Choice is performed in London

Music-hall artist Harry Lauder is knighted for his wartime performances entertaining troops at the front

Bristol-born actor Cary Grant moves to the USA with a troupe of touring tumblers

Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart work together as Columbia University students, creating the musical Fly With Me

Within a five-week period the Italian playwright Luigi Pirandello writes two masterpieces, Six Characters in Search of an Author immediately followed by Henry IV

The Czech playwright Karel Capek gives the world the term 'robot', in the title of his play Rossum's Universal Robots

Eugene O'Neill's play Anna Christie is performed in New York

The Broadway show Ziegfeld Follies features an exciting new dance, the Charleston

Sean O'Casey's first play The Shadow of a Gunman is performed at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin

US dramatist Elmer Rice establishes his reputation with The Adding Machine, an expressionistic drama about the machine age

Bernard Shaw's play Saint Joan has its world premiere in New York

Sean O'Casey's second play Juno and the Paycock is performed at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin

Gracie Fields makes her name when she appears in London as Sally Perkins in the musical Mr Tower of London

The Broadway revue Garrick Gaieties is the first big success for Rodgers and Hart

African-American singer and dancer Josephine Baker is jazz hot in La Revue Nègre in Paris

Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill write Mahagonny Songspiel for the Baden-Baden music festival

DuBose Heyward's novel Porgy, dramatized with a new title by himself and his wife Dorothy, has a great success on Broadway and in London

Oscar Hammerstein II and Jerome Kern open on Broadway with an immensely influential American musical, Show Boat

The Front Page, by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, has its premiere on Broadway

The Threepenny Opera, by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill, opens to great acclaim in Berlin

Set in a World War I trench, the play Journey's End reflects the wartime experiences of its British author, R.C. Sherriff

Vladimir Mayakovsky's play The Bedbug is directed in Moscow by Meyerhold with incidental music by Shostakovich

US author Marc Connelly's play Green Pastures has its premiere on Broadway