From TV shows to musicals we have seen the most successful and the oldest. But what about Broadway shows? Some of them have been running for years and should be included in a list. So I have done just that…
Beauty and the Beast
10 – Beauty and the Beast (Total Offical Performances: 5,461)
Wiki Info: Critics, who hailed it as one of the year’s finest musicals, immediately noted the film’s Broadway musical potential when it was first released in 1991, encouraging Disney CEO Michael Eisner to venture into Broadway. All eight songs from the animated film were reused in the musical, including a resurrected musical number which had been cut from the motion picture.
Wicked
9 – Wicked (Total Offical Performances: 5,722)
Wiki Info: Wicked: The Untold Story of the Witches of Oz is a Broadway musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and book by Winnie Holzman. It is based on the 1995 Gregory Maguire novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, an alternative telling of the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz and L.
Mamma Mia!
8 – Mamma Mia! (Total Offical Performances: 5,758)
Wiki Info: Mamma Mia! (promoted as Benny Andersson & Björn Ulvaeus’ Mamma Mia! and Mamma Mia! The Smash Hit Musical) is a jukebox musical written by British playwright Catherine Johnson, based on the songs of ABBA, composed by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, former members of the band.
Oh! Calcutta!
7 – Oh! Calcutta! (Total Offical Performances: 5,959)
Wiki Info: Oh! Calcutta! is an avant-garde theatrical revue, created by British drama critic Kenneth Tynan. The show, consisting of sketches on sex-related topics, debuted Off-Broadway in 1969 and then in the West End in 1970.
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A Chorus Line
6 – A Chorus Line (Total Offical Performances: 6,137)
Wiki Info: A Chorus Line is a musical with music by Marvin Hamlisch, lyrics by Edward Kleban and a book by James Kirkwood, Jr. and Nicholas Dante. Centred on seventeen Broadway dancers auditioning for spots on a chorus line, the musical is set on the bare stage of a Broadway theatre during an audition for a musical.
Les Misérables
5 – Les Misérables (Total Offical Performances: 6,680)
Wiki Info: Set in early 19th-century France, it is the story of Jean Valjean, a French peasant, and his quest for redemption after serving nineteen years in jail for having stolen a loaf of bread for his sister’s starving child. Valjean decides to break his parole and start his life anew after a kindly bishop inspires him by a tremendous act of mercy, but he is relentlessly tracked down by a police inspector named Javert.
Cats
4 – Cats (Total Offical Performances: 7,485)
Wiki Info: Cats is a musical composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber, based on Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot, and produced by Cameron Mackintosh. The musical tells the story of a tribe of cats called the Jellicles and the night they make what is known as “the Jellicle choice” and decide which cat will ascend to the Heaviside Layer and come back to a new life. Cats introduced the song standard “Memory”. The first performance of Cats was in 1981.
The Lion King
3 – The Lion King (Total Offical Performances: 8,189)
Wiki Info: The Lion King is a musical based on the 1994 Disney animated film of the same name with music by Elton John and lyrics by Tim Rice along with the musical score created by Hans Zimmer with choral arrangements by Lebo M. Directed by Julie Taymor, the musical features actors in animal costumes as well as giant, hollow puppets. The show is produced by Disney Theatrical Productions.
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Chicago
2 – Chicago (Total Offical Performances: 8,587)
Wiki Info: Chicago (1975) is an American musical with music by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb, and a book by Ebb and Bob Fosse. Set in Prohibition-era Chicago, the musical is based on a 1926 play of the same name by reporter Maurine Dallas Watkins about actual criminals and crimes she reported on. The story is a satire on corruption in the administration of criminal justice and the concept of the “celebrity criminal.”
The Phantom of the Opera
1 – The Phantom of the Opera (Total Offical Performances: 12,262)
Wiki Info: The Phantom of the Opera is a musical with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyrics by Charles Hart and Richard Stilgoe. Lloyd Webber and Stilgoe also wrote the musical’s book together.