Creatures of Impulse is a short story by English dramatist W. S. Gilbert, which he later adapted for the stage with music by composer-conductor Alberto Randegger. Both the short story and the play concern an unwanted and ill-tempered old fairy who enchants people to behave in a manner opposite to their natures, with farcical results. The short story was written for The Graphic's Christmas number of 1870, and the play was first produced at the Court Theatre on 2 April 1871. It originally included six songs, but three were eventually cut, and some productions dispensed with the music entirely. While the lyrics survive, the music was never published and is lost. Reviews of the play were mostly positive, though it was criticised for the lack of a significant plot or superstructure to support its comic premise. Nonetheless, reviewers found it enjoyable, and it was a modest success, running for 91 performances and enjoying revivals into the early part of the 20th century. Gilbert had already written a considerable body of stories, plays, poems, criticism and other works before writing Creatures of Impulse and would go on to write the libretti to the famous Savoy operas (composed by Arthur Sullivan) between 1871 and 1896.

• 1 March 1892 – Birth of American playwright Mercedes de Acosta
• 6 March 1853 – Premiere of La traviata by Giuseppe Verdi, one of the most famous and influential opera composers of the 19th century
• 11 March 1959 – Premiere of Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun, the first play performed on Broadway written by an African-American woman
• 14 March 1885 – Premier of Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera The Mikado at London's Savoy Theatre, where it played 672 performances
• 15 March 1920 – The Blue Flame, considered one of the worst plays ever performed on Broadway, debuts at the Shubert Theatre
• 20 March 1828 – Birth of Henrik Ibsen, often called the "father of modern drama", whose plays challenged Victorian morality
• 22 March 1832 – Death of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (pictured), whose magnum opus Faust was completed the year of his death and published the year after
• 25 March 1875 – Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera Trial by Jury debuts at London's Royalty Theatre.
• 26 March 1996 – Syrian playwright Saadallah Wannous was the first Arab writer to present the UNESCO address to the International Institute of Theater on International Theater Day

William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, now widely regarded as the greatest writer of the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon". His surviving works consist of 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1590 and 1613. His early plays were mainly comedies and histories, genres he raised to the peak of sophistication and artistry by the end of the sixteenth century. Next he wrote mainly tragedies until 1608, producing plays, such as Hamlet, King Lear, and Macbeth, considered some of the finest in the English language. In his last phase, he wrote tragicomedies and collaborated with other playwrights. Many of his plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime; and in 1623, two of his former theatrical colleagues published the First Folio, a collected edition of his dramatic works that included all but two of the plays now recognised as Shakespeare's. Shakespeare was a respected poet and playwright in his own day; but his reputation would not rise to its present heights until the nineteenth century.

• ... that illustrator Al Hirschfeld knew he would get his own Broadway theater for his 100th birthday, but he died before the renaming?
• ... that Peter Herrmann composed a Second Symphony that premiered at the Gewandhaus with Kurt Masur, and a Kant Pop Symphony that premiered at the Musikhochschule Leipzig, where he had taught for decades?
• ... that Japanese industrialist Ichizō Kobayashi established the Takarazuka Grand Theater in the city of Takarazuka because it was located at the terminus of a train line owned by his company?
• ... that the Cort Theatre has hosted the Broadway debuts of actresses Katharine Hepburn and Grace Kelly?
• ... that the London Theatre Studio was the first English drama school to teach theatrical design as well as drama?
• ... that after contralto Florence Wickham made her debut in Germany, she was engaged for an American tour as Kundry in Wagner's Parsifal?

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