Long Running Shows on Broadway

It's been a while since we took a look at the list of long-running shows on Broadway and a few things have changed; mainly that Phantom of the Opera, which we often predicted here jokingly would never close has closed. It still has the Number One spot though and will for some time. The revival of Chicago, which most Broadway pundits were sure would close first, is still running and it's only 3,420 performances behind Phantom.

A Broadway show typically does about 400 performances a year but if Chicago does continue on for another eight and a half years, it might claim the top spot.  (The shows in boldface are the ones that are still running.)

The Phantom of the Opera – 13,981 performancesChicago (1996 Revival) – 10,561 performances The Lion King – 10,179 performances Wicked – 7,718 performancesCats – 7,485 performancesLes Misérables – 6,680 performancesA Chorus Line – 6,137 performancesOh! Calcutta! (1976 Revival) – 5,959 performancesMamma Mia! – 5,758 performancesBeauty and the Beast – 5,461 performancesRent – 5,123 performancesJersey Boys – 4,642 performances The Book of Mormon – 4,575 performancesMiss Saigon – 4,092 performances42nd Street – 3,486 performancesGrease – 3,388 performances Aladdin – 3,347 performancesFiddler on the Roof – 3,242 performancesLife with Father – 3,224 performancesTobacco Road – 3,182 performancesHello, Dolly! – 2,844 performances Hamilton – 2,789 performancesMy Fair Lady – 2,717 performancesHairspray – 2,642 performancesMary Poppins – 2,619 performances

As you can see, Hamilton will soon pass Hello, Dolly!, The Book of Mormon will soon pass Jersey Boys, and Aladdin will soon pass Grease and 42nd Street.

Worth noting is that Disney has four shows in the Top 25, whereas Stephen Sondheim, Neil Simon, Richard Rodgers (with or without Oscar Hammerstein) and Mel Brooks have a combined total of none, though if this was a Top 30 list, The Producers would be on it.  Andrew Lloyd Webber has two shows on the Top 25 list, both in the Top 5.  And not one of these shows ever had Nathan Lane, Bernadette Peters, Patti LuPone, Audra MacDonald or Hugh Jackman in it, though every night at Lion King, the guy playing the meerkat is probably doing an impression of Nathan.

Also worth noting: All the shows on this list are musicals except for Life With Father and Tobacco Road.

The oddest presence on this list would seem to be the revival of Oh! Calcutta!, a show that no one liked in this version or the original.  Why this ran so long is pretty obvious: It had naked people in it.  Also, it was a very cheap show to put on with a cast of eight, none of whom probably got over scale and it was in a small theater.

The theater was The Edison, a converted ballroom inside the Edison Hotel. It only had 541 seats and I once heard an actress who was in Oh! Calcutta! there say that they could show a profit if the place was half-full, which was often accomplished by booking tour groups, often from other countries. Even then, she said, they had people walking out in mid-show most nights and once in a while, they played to less than 50 people. Eventually, so few seats were being filled that the show closed. A few other plays inhabited the theater but they didn't last long, possibly because all the actors in them were clothed…whereupon the Edison Hotel turned the theater back into their ballroom.

So that explains why that show ran as long as it did. How though do we explain why The Phantom of the Opera lasted longer than the expiration date on a box of Wheat Chex? Perhaps if we're willing to invest two hours and forty minutes watching this video, we'll get a clue. This is a performance of Phantom done in 2011 at the Royal Albert Hall. It was jazzed-up with extra production value and a larger-than-usual cast and orchestra, plus special appearances…all to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the show. Still, whatever made this juggernaut a success is probably in there somewhere…