Long-running Musical Theatre Productions
This is a selected list of the longest-running musical theatre productions in history divided into two sections. The first section lists all Broadway or West End productions that have exceeded 2,500 performances in order of greatest number of performances in either market. The second section lists musicals that have broken historical long run records on Broadway, in the West End or Off-Broadway throughout history, in alphabetical order.
- Legend:
- m = music, l = lyrics, b = book
- (Noteworthy trivia appear in parentheses)
- (5,678) = number of performances (in original Broadway production if not specified)
- > denotes shows that are still in production. The number of Broadway performances is updated per Playbill.com as of October 2012. The number of West End performances is updated sporadically as information becomes available.
- "Tony Award winner" denotes winner of Tony for Best Musical
- "Olivier Award winner" denotes winner of award for Best New Musical
Read more about Long-running Musical Theatre Productions: Longest-running Musicals On Broadway and The West End, Other Historic Long Runs
Famous quotes containing the words musical, theatre and/or productions:
“Fifty million Frenchmen can’t be wrong.”
—Anonymous. Popular saying.
Dating from World War I—when it was used by U.S. soldiers—or before, the saying was associated with nightclub hostess Texas Quinan in the 1920s. It was the title of a song recorded by Sophie Tucker in 1927, and of a Cole Porter musical in 1929.
“People fall out of windows, trees tumble down,
Summer is changed to winter, the young grow old
The air is full of children, statues, roofs
And snow. The theatre is spinning round,
Colliding with deaf-mute churches and optical trains.
The most massive sopranos are singing songs of scales.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“If in many of my productions terror has been the thesis, I maintain that terror is not of Germany, but of the soul.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)