Great off-Broadway plays & musicals that never made the transfer to Broadway...

[title of show] - still waiting on the Helen Hayes!

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L5Y could definitely work, but I think it'd only work in an extremely small house (something like Circle in the Square).

I don't know about BAT BOY, but I know Trailer Park pretty much flopped.

BAT BOY ran for 4 years and was an Off-Broadway hit! It was quite successful.

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BAT BOY was one of several victims of the post 9/11 economic downturn in NYC. It was just starting to catch on and attract consistent audiences when 9/11 happened -- New Yorkers stopped going out as much for a long time and tourists stopped coming to the city altogether and it took nearly a year for the city to start to really turn around. BAT BOY limped along for a couple of months and then closed right after Thanksgiving.

TRAILER PARK just never caught on and flopped after just a few months despite some decent reviews.

WIT did great off-Broadway at the Union Square Theatre. It wanted to transfer to the Helen Hayes, but the owner of the theatre thought that a play about cancer wasn't commercial enough and refused to book it, so it stayed where it was.

THE LAST 5 YEARS is simply too small of a show with too limited an appeal to ever go to Broadway (unless of course a pair of MAJOR stars agreed to do it). It couldn't even fill the tiny Minetta Lane Theatre Off-Broadway for its short little two month run, despite some good reviews.

[title of show] also has too limited an appeal for Broadway (it didn't sell out the tiny Vineyard Theatre in its last run and stayed on tdf and discounts the whole time). At any rate, XANADU will be the next tenant at the Helen Hayes (though I'm not sure how successful that could be).

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Updated On: 1/15/07 at 01:28 AM

I can't believe we're getting Xanadu in the Helen Hayes instead of [title of show]. TRAGEDY!!! Couldn't it play just a limited engagement there so that they can say the show got to broadway? It's not like the weekly nut would be high...

"Great" is always a relative term, but I Love You Because is one of my favorite musicals of the past few years. Also too small for a Broadway transfer.

And much as I love the score for The Last 5 Years, it just doesn't really work as a show.

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Maybe it's just me, but I don't see [title of show] working on Broadway.

Bare springs to mind though I'm pretty mixed on the show (or at least what I've seen and heard)

Was an attempt ever made for Shop of Horrors to move to Broadway (the original production?) or the earlier (and criminally forgotten) WPA/Ashman/Menken/Vonnegaut musical God Bless You Mr Rosewater?

I'd throw in a few LaChiusa shows here--Little Fish, Hello Again and Bernarda spring to mind most but there are good arguments for them maybe not working on Broadway (ditto the Ahrens/Flahherty Man of No Importance which I know I seem to like much more than most)

The original production of Assassins?

This is slightly off-topic, but one also has to take into account whether a show actually would WANT to transfer to Broadway. For instance, we are running THE BIG VOICE now off-Broadway and I'm constantly asked, "When are you gonna transfer to Broadway?" or "I bet you'd love to transfer to Broadway!" or "Maybe you guys'll get to transfer..." etc. (because of our amazing reviews including the Times) and I keep responding, "Not really. We like our venue and have never thought of our show as a Broadway transfer."

In other words, people seem to assume that if you're in New York and you have a successful show, then you AUTOMATICALLY want a Broadway transfer. And I know they mean well, that they're paying us a lovely compliment, but we have always thought of Big Voice as an off-Broadway show. We like the Off-Broadway aesthetic, the smaller venue, the more intimate type of performance, the lower ticket price, etc.

Steve Schalchlin
The Big Voice website

I think there's this little show called The Fantastiks, that seems to be kind of popular. But I don't know if it could make the transfer.

Bare: A Pop Opera. I'm still sad it couldn't extend. I find it be a fantastic, very important show. Much better than a lot of the shows on Broadway currently.

And The Wild Party (Lippa). I absolutely love that show!

Took the words out of my mouth ggersten. The Fantastiks would completely fail on Broadway. It is too tiny. Sadly, when I saw the revival many kids in the audience were asking their mommy's where all the cool effects were.

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