284 B'way Shows So Far, How Many Have YOU Seen?

I decided to make a list of every Broadway show I've ever seen.

And the list kept growing and growing and growing. So far I've got 284. I've just added two to the list and am about to add yet another.

Mind you, I've seen some of these shows two or three times.
I've put an asterisk (*) next to some of my very favorites. I've put a pound (#) next to some of the shows I've seen more than once. And the tilde (~) represents shows that flopped.

How many hours in the theater does this amount to? Probably more than 700! Going over these shows brought back so many memories of time spent cocooned in Broadway theaters. 

Of course, some shows I barely remember while others stand out so vividly in my mind I feel like they are part of me. And all the moments that come to mind. For example, one weekend we saw three musicals, each 20 years apart: Barnam from the 1980s, Camelot from the 1960s and Oklahoma! from the 1940s -- all one word titles, too. What a weekend that was!

The real standouts include the magnificent Hal Prince production of Show Boat; Sondheim's original Sweeney Todd, Sunday In The Park With George and Pacific Overtures; Tommy Tune's Will Rogers Follies and Nine; Jerry Herman's Hello Dolly!, Mame and La Cage; Lloyd Webber's Phantom and Sunset Boulevard, and so many, many stars: Carol Channing, Lena Horne, Angela Lansbury, Bernadette Peters, Ethel Merman, Mary Martin, Jake Gyllenhaal, Mandy Patinkin, Tommy Tune, Raul Julia, Nathan Lane, Gregory Hines, Jerry Orbach, Audra McDonald, Robert Preston, Matthew Broderick, Jeremy Jordan, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Debbie Reynolds, Sammy Davis, Hugh Jackman, Gregory Hines and on and on! 
This is still an incomplete list, but here it is up to this point:

110 In The Shade

1776

42nd Street*
A Bronx Tale

A Chorus Line

A Day In Hollywood/A Night In The Ukraine

A Funny Thing . . . #

A Gentlemen’s Guide To . . .

Ain't Too Proud

A Joyful Noise

A Little Night Music

Alladin
All American~

Always, Patsy Cline

A Matter of Gravity
Amelie
Anastasia

A Party With . . .

A View From the Bridge#

After Midnight*

After the Fall

Ain’t Misbehavin’*

An American in Paris*

Annie

Annie Get Your Gun#
Any Wednesday

Anything Goes

Applause

Assassins

Baby~

Back To The Future

Barnum* 

Beautiful

Beauty and the Beast
Beetlejuice

Big

Big Fish~

Big River

Blithe Spirit*#

Bonnie & Clyde~
Brigadoon

Bubbling Brown Sugar

Bullets Over Broadway
Butterflies Are Free

Bye, Bye Birdie#

Cabaret*

Camelot#

Can-Can

Candide

Carousel*#

Catch Me If You Can

Chapter Two

Chess*

Chicago*#

Chinglish~

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

Cinderella

City of Angels

Clothes for a Summer Hotel~
Coco

Company*#

Crazy for You

Curtains

Damn Yankees

Death Becomes Her

Defending The Caveman

Design For Living#

Elaine Stritch At Liberty*
End Of Te Rainbow

Equus

Eubie!

Evita

Fiddler on the Roof

Finding Neverland

Finian’s Rainbow*
Fiorello#

Five Guys Named Moe

Follies*#

Footloose
Forty Carats

Foxy

Funny Girl

Gigi

Girl From The North Country

Godspell

Golden Boy

Golden Rainbow~
Grand Hotel#

Grease

Grey Gardens

Grind~
Groundhog Day

Guys and Dolls#

Gypsy*

Hadestown

Hair

Hairspray

Hamilton

Happy Birthday, Gemini~

Harmony

Hay Fever

Hello, Dolly!*# 

Henry Sweet henry
Here's Love~

Here We Are

High Fidelity~

High Society

Honeymoon in Vegas~

How To Succeed In Business . . .#
I Do, I Do

I Love My Wife
I Married An Angel

I Remember Mama~

Into The Woods

Irene~
It's A Bird, It's A Plane, It's Superman

It Shoulda Been You~

It’s Only a Play

I’m Not Rappaport

Jackie Mason on Broadway

Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well

Jekyll & Hyde

Jelly's Last Jam

Jersey Boys#

Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

Kelly~

Kinky Boots

Kiss Me, Kate#

Kiss of the Spider Woman

La Cage aux Folles 

Last of the Red Hot Lovers

Legally Blonde

Lena Horne – The Lady and Her Music#

Lend Me A Tenor

Les Miserables

Light Up The Sky

Little Me*#

Little Shop of Horrors#

Lorelei~

Love Life
Love Never Dies~

Luther

M. Butterfly
Mack & Mabel

Mame*#

Man of La Mancha

Mandy Patinkin in Concert
Marat/Sade

Mary Poppins

Mass Appeal

Matilda

Me and My Girl*#

Memphis

Metro~

Million Dollar Quartet

Miss Moffat~

Mr. Saturday Night

Moon Over Buffalo

Mornings At Seven

Motown

Moulin Rouge

Mr. Saturday Night

Mrs. Doubtfire

Mummenschanz

My Fair Lady#

My One and Only*

Newsies
Network

Nice Work If You Can Get It*

Nine*

No, No, Nanette*

Noises Off

Oh Coward!
Oh! What A Lovely War

Oklahoma!*#

Oliver!*
Once On This Island

Once Upon a Mattress

On Your Toes

On the Town

On the Twentieth Century

Over Here!

Pacific Overtures*#

Paint Your Wagon

Pal Joey

Paradise Alley~

Passion

Penn & Teller

Peter Pan*

Pippin
Play It Again, Sam
Present Laughter
Pretty Woman
Prince of Broadway

Private Lives#

Promises, Promises

Pump Boys and Dinettes

Putting It Together

Purlie Victorious

Pygmalion

Ragtime*#

Road Show

Rocky
Romulus~

Same Time, Next Year

Saturday Night Fever

Seesaw
She Loves Me

Shenandoah

Show Boat*#

Shucked
Shuffle Along*

Side Show

Side by Side by Sondheim*

Singin’ In The Rain#

Sly Fox

Smokey Joe’s Cafe

Social Security~

Some Like It Hot

Something Rotten!

Sophisticated Ladies*

South Pacific*

Spamalot
Sponge Bob Square Pants

Starlight Express

Steel Pier~

Sugar~

Sugar Babies*#

Sunday in the Park with George*

Sunset Boulevard*

Sweeney Todd*

Teddy & Alice~

The Addams Family
The Band Wagon
The Band's Visit

The Belle of Amherst

The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas

The Boy From Oz

The Bridges of Madison County~

The Drowsy Chaperone*

The Flying Karamazov Brothers
The Front Page

The Full Monty

The Glass Menagerie

The Goodbye Girl

The Great Gatsby
The Happy Time

The Illusionists

The King and I*#

The Life~

The Light in the Piazza

The Magic Show

The Most Happy Fella

The Music Man*#
The New Yorkers

The Phantom of the Opera

The Play That Goes Wrong

The Producers

The Red Shoes~

The Ritz

The Search For Signs of Intelligent Life . . .

The Sound of Music

The Wedding Singer~

The Will Rogers Follies*

The Wiz

They’re Playing Our Song

This Was Burlesque*

Thoroughly Modern Millie*

Titanic*#

Tommy Tune Tonite!
Tootsie*

Vanya and Sonia And Masha and Spike*

Victor Victoria*

Vieux Carré~
Waitress
War Paint

Water For Elephants

We Take The Town~

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?*#

Wicked

Wonderful Town

 You Can’t Take It With You

Young Frankenstein

Zorba#

Legend:
* personal fave
# seen more than once
~ flop

Six B'way Musicals We've Recently Seen

Oh, its's been a very busy time for us on Broadway. H
ere are six we've recently seen along with our capsule reviews:

Aladdin: No, it’s not just for kids. It’s actually something the whole family can enjoy. And audiences prove it as the show has been running for more than 10 years. We enjoyed it with our grandkids and everyone had a great time. Yes. there are some slow parts but, overall the production is a dazzler with ample displays of the magic of Broadway and great tunes like Proud of Your Boy, Arabian Nights, Friend Like Me, A Whole New World and Prince Ali. Several of these have become classics.

Back To The Future: The show will close soon but it’s had a very healthy 18-month Broadway run and contains the zippiest special effects on Broadway right now. The cast is superb and the show is mostly faithful to the story line of the movie (with some updates). What’s more it’s funny and the cast has great fun with the whole tongue-in-cheek concept of the show. An excellent production. BTW: The show has already embarked on an extended North American tour!

Ragtime: The big, richly melodic City Center Encores production of this epic musical has just concluded a limited run which we were lucky enough to catch and all we can say is “WOW!” We saw the original production in 1998 and this faithful revival is nothing short of exuberant. This is no reinterpretation, folks. This is the real deal and one is likely never to see anything like it again: full orchestra, big cast, lush score, historic tale. We’re praying they’ll bring this revival to Broadway as soon as possible. Please!

Water For Elephants: Another fine musical that’s soon to close on Broadway but headed to a national tour likely to come to a town near year. And that makes sense because the whole show is about a traveling circus and, yes it’s based on the movie of the same name. As it’s set during the Great Depression, involves a group of grifters and misfits and deals with animal cruelty, it’s not exactly a cheerful story but the authentic circus acrobats who are part of the production are enthralling. Ditto, the inventive choreography and imaginative sets.

The Great Gatsby: Finally, Gatsby’s story has been faithfully brought to the stage in a mostly sung-through musical that is of operatic proportions. Jeremy Jordan, Eva Noblezada and Noah Ricketts are superb in the primary roles. But Ricketts as Nick Carraway (the teller of the tale) is the real standout here. He totally inhabits the role. This is, as one reviewer described it “a great, big Broadway extravaganza.” The costumes (more than 300 of them designed by Linda Cho)  justifiably garnered their own Tony award and the projected set design gives the production a whole new dimension. (Photo above)

Once Upon A Mattress: This is a limited run (must end November 30) revival of the 1959 musical loosely based on The Princess and the Pea. The show can only be described as a festival of silliness broadly played by a winning cast showcasing the bountiful comedic talents of the effervescent Sutton Foster. The show can be tedious at times but Foster, Michael Urie, Will Chase, Ana Gasteyer and the rest of the company keep things moving along at a brisk pace with lots of punchy one liners and old-fashioned mugging. It’s a jocular fairy tale, a cartoon and a fable all rolled into one. This crowd pleaser puts the comedy back into musical comedy!

Broadway Lights Dimmed For Great Star!

The Broadway community honored the memory of James Earl Jones, four-time nominated and two-time Tony Award®-winning actor and recipient of the 2017 Special Tony Award® for Lifetime Achievement, whose career spanned almost seven decades on Broadway. Mr. Jones passed away on September 9, 2024, at the age of 93. On September 26, 2024, the Committee of Theatre Owners dimmed the lights of Broadway theaters in New York at 6:45pm, in his honor.

In addition to his Special Tony Award® for Lifetime Achievement, Mr. Jones was further honored by the Broadway community on September 12, 2022, when the Cort Theatre was renamed the James Earl Jones Theatre.

“James Earl Jones was a true pillar of the Broadway industry, providing unforgettable experiences to multiple generations of theatregoers – all while accumulating many well-deserved honors, awards, and achievements for his iconic performances in other entertainment fields. While we acknowledge and celebrate Jones’ significant legacy across multiple mediums, we are particularly proud of his legacy on Broadway, and are grateful for the many memorable performances with which he graced our stages,” said Jason Laks, Interim President of The Broadway League.

Jones’ Broadway career began in 1957 as an understudy in The Egghead – only a decade later, he received his first Tony Award® for his work in The Great White Hope. He would go on to star in such stage classics as the original production of August Wilson’s Fences, The Iceman Cometh, Of Mice and Men, Othello, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and Driving Miss Daisy, among many other notable productions. He performed on Broadway as recently as 2016 in The Gin Game, starring alongside Cicely Tyson.

During this long and storied career, he was nominated for four Tony Awards®, winning two for The Great White Hope (1969 Best Actor in a Play) and Fences (1987 Best Actor in a Play), in addition to being the recipient of the 2017 Special Tony Award® for Lifetime Achievement.  Jones’ Tony Awards® also contributed to his inclusion in a small but distinguished cohort of “EGOT” (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony) winners.

On Broadway Jones’ credits included: The Egghead (1957); Sunrise at Campobello (1958); The Cool World (1960); Infidel Caesar (1962); Danton’s Death (1965 Revival); A Hand is on the Gate (1966); The Great White Hope (1968 Winner Best Actor In A Play); Les Blancs (1970); The Iceman Cometh (1973 Revival); Of Mice and Men (1974 Revival); Paul Robeson (1978); A Lesson From Aloes (1980); Othello (1982 Revival); “MASTER HAROLD”…and the boys (1982); Fences (1987 Winner Best Actor In A Play); On Golden Pond (2005 Revival, Nominee Best Actor in A Play); Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (2008 Revival); Driving Miss Daisy (2010); Gore Vidal’s The Best Man (2012 Revival, Nominee Best Performance By An Actor In A Leading Role In A Play); You Can’t Take It With You (2014 Revival); and The Gin Game (2015 Revival). Mr. Jones was also in the Broadway Tour of “MASTER HAROLD”…and the boys (1983).

Mr. Jones’ Broadway biography can be found on the Internet Broadway Database. 

Broadway Remembers Those It Lost . . .

Complete List Of 2024 Tony Winners!

Here are all the winners from last night's Tony Awards:

Best Musical: “The Outsiders”

Best Play: "Stereophonic"

Best Revival of a Musical: "Merrily We Roll Along"

Best Revival of a Play: “Appropriate”

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical: Maleah Joi Moon, “Hell’s Kitchen”

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical: Jonathan Groff, “Merrily We Roll Along”

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play: Sarah Paulson, “Appropriate”

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play: Jeremy Strong, “An Enemy of the People”

Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical: Daniel Radcliffe (shown above), “Merrily We Roll Along”

Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical: Kecia Lewis, "Hell's Kitchen"

Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play: Will Brill, “Stereophonic”

Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play: Kara Young, “Purlie Victorious: A Non-Confederate Romp Through the Cotton Patch”

Best Direction of a Play: Daniel Aukin, “Stereophonic”

Best Direction of a Musical: Danya Taymor, “The Outsiders”

Best Original Score: “Suffs,” music & lyrics: Shaina Taub

Best Book of a Musical: "Suffs," Shaina Taub

Best Choreography: Justin Peck, “Illinoise”

Best Costume Design of a Play:  Dede Ayite, “Jaja’s African Hair Braiding”

Best Costume Design of a Musical: Linda Cho, “The Great Gatsby”

Best Orchestrations: Jonathan Tunick, "Merrily We Roll Along"

Best Scenic Design of a Musical: Tom Scutt, “Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club”

Best Scenic Design of a Play: David Zinn, "Stereophonic"

Best Lighting Design of a Musical: Hana S. Kim and Brian MacDevitt, “The Outsiders”

Best Lighting Design of a Play: Jane Cox, “Appropriate”

Best Sound Design of a Play: Ryan Rumery, “Stereophonic”

Best Sound Design of a Musical: Cody Spencer, “The Outsiders”

Now This Should Blow You Away!

2024 Outer Critics Award Winners Announced

The complete list of this year's OCC Award winners:

Outstanding New Broadway Play

Stereophonic by David Adjmi

Outstanding New Broadway Musical

Suffs

Outstanding New Off-Broadway Musical

Dead Outlaw

Outstanding New Off-Broadway Play

Primary Trust by Eboni Booth

John Gassner Award (new American play preferably by a new playwright)

Oh, Mary! by Cole Escola

Outstanding Revival of a Musical

I Can Get It for You Wholesale

Outstanding Revival of a Play

Appropriate

Outstanding Lead Performer in a Broadway Play

Jessica Lange – Mother Play

Outstanding Featured Performer in a Broadway Play

Kara Young – Purlie Victorious

Outstanding Lead Performer in a Broadway Musical

Kelli O’Hara – Days of Wine and Roses

Outstanding Featured Performer in a Broadway Musical

Kecia Lewis – Hell’s Kitchen

Outstanding Lead Performer in an Off-Broadway Musical

Andrew Durand – Dead Outlaw

Outstanding Featured Performer in an Off-Broadway Musical (tie)

Judy Kuhn – I Can Get It For You Wholesale

Thom Sesma – Dead Outlaw

Outstanding Lead Performer in an Off-Broadway Play (tie)

Cole Escola – Oh, Mary!

William Jackson Harper – Primary Trust

Outstanding Featured Performer in an Off-Broadway Play

Jay O. Sanders – Primary Trust

Outstanding Solo Performance

Patrick Page – All the Devils Are Here

Outstanding Book of a Musical (Broadway or Off-Broadway)

Shaina Taub – Suffs

Outstanding Score (Broadway or Off-Broadway)

Shaina Taub – Suffs

Outstanding Orchestrations (Broadway or Off-Broadway)

Marco Paguia – Buena Vista Social Club

Outstanding Direction of a Musical (Broadway or Off-Broadway)

Jessica Stone – Water for Elephants

Outstanding Direction of a Play (Broadway of Off-Broadway)

Daniel Aukin – Stereophonic

Outstanding Choreography (Broadway or Off-Broadway)

Justin Peck — Illinoise

Outstanding Scenic Design (tie)

Paul Tate dePoo III – The Great Gatsby 

David Zinn – Stereophonic

Outstanding Costume Design

Linda Cho – The Great Gatsby

Outstanding Lighting Design

Brian MacDevitt – The Outsiders

Outstanding Sound Design

Ryan Rumery – Stereophonic

Outstanding Video/Projections

Peter Nigrini – The Who’s Tommy