At the request of Studio Arena’s Kathleen Gaffney, who seems decidedly dedicated to tradition for such an unconventional artistic director, Artvoice will revive our formerly annual King and Queen of Curtain Up! contest on Curtain Up! night. And, as in years past, we will do it in a trivial way.

Do you enjoy theater trivia? For example:

1) In the movie, My Fair Lady, Audrey Hepburn played Eliza Doolittle, but on Broadway and in London’s West End it was what other actress?

2) Did the first Artie Award ceremony take place at the Tralfamadore Café, the Pfeifer Theatre, Flynn’s, Murphy’s Omega or Garvey’s?

3) Of the following actors, who never slept with Laurence Olivier: Joan Plowright, Vivian Leigh, Marilyn Monroe or Danny Kaye?

4) Glenn Close played it on Broadway, but who was the original Norma Desmond in the London premiere of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Sunset Boulevard?

5) Early in her career, Bette Midler appeared on Broadway in what show?

Easy? Try these:

6) Though Katharine Cornell grew up in Buffalo, she was actually born in what European city?

7) The year Betty Buckley won her Tony Award for Cats, the other nominees included Christine Andreas for On Your Toes, Karla Burns for Show Boat, and one other actress who played Tommy Tune’s comic airplane repairing side-kick in My One and Only. Can you name that other actress?

8) For what show did Chita Rivera win her first Tony Award?

9) Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote The King and I at the request of Gertrude Lawrence, but the star originally approached another Broadway songwriter, who turned her down. Was it Cole Porter, Irving Berlin or Noel Coward?

Still in the game? Okay, take these on:

10) What Broadway legend was popularly known as Mama String-bean?

11) Richard Brinsley Sheridan, author of The School for Scandal, was celebrated for his work on the London stage during the English Restoration period, but he was actually born in what other city?

12) While working at Buffalo’s Lafayette Theatre, in Lafayette Square, these sisters earned a hundred dollars a week for the first time, while appearing in vaudeville.

13) Who was the first actress to win an Artie for her performance in a musical?

14) Of the 17 Buffalo area factories organized by nonagenarian labor activist-playwright-actor Manny Fried, how many are still in operation?

15) “Oh, for a muse of fire that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention!” is the opening line of what play?

To hear more theater-related trivia, come see some of Buffalo’s favorite theater personalities compete for the title of Artvoice Curtain Up! King & Queen (and for some pretty fabulous prizes), in the bar of Studio Arena Theatre on Curtain Up! night. It is a silly and fun contest in which the likes of actor Joseph Demerly, playwright Jon Elston, actress-director Lisa Ludwig, actress Connie McEwen, actress-producer Mary Kate O’Connell, actor Marc Sacco, actress-and-everything Joyce Stilson and designer Todd Warfield will represent Buffalo’s theaters in celebration of Curtain Up!

The bar is running a drink special. Michael Hake will be at the keyboard. A good time is just about guaranteed. The festivities will begin after the shows end that night (to give actors a chance to hurry on down), which means sometime between 11:30 and midnight.

And for those who can’t stand not knowing the answers:

1) Julie Andrews

2) Garvey’s

3) Marilyn Monroe—though they did make a movie together

4) Tom Fontana’s cousin, Patti LuPone

5) Fiddler on the Roof—sounds crazy, no?

6) Berlin, Germany—her father was on a medical internship there. Their Buffalo home still stands on Mariner Street. The Peter Cornell Trust still supports Shakespeare in Delaware Park.

7) Denny Dillon, current star of Tom Dudzick’s Don’t Talk to the Actors at Studio Arena Theatre

8) The Rink—the old rules prevented her from even being nominated for West Side Story!

9) Cole Porter, believe it or not. That would have been quite a show!

10) Ethel Waters

11) Dublin, Ireland. Where else?

12) June Havoc and Gypsy Rose Lee.

13) Mary Kate O’Connell

14) None

15) Henry V