PThespian said: "So every Broadway show had to be registered with the League before it opens, and they determine if it is or is not a Broadway show?
So Phantom registered 28 years ago before it began its run and that's why they can now say it is the longest running show in Broadway history?
School of Rock registered before making the announcement that the film was being turned into a Broadway musical?"
I don't know exactly when these procedures started. I assume it goes back before Phantom but I was not around here then and I have never paid attention to the timeline. I do know the League started in the 30s, around the time of the passage of the Wagner Act, so I feel pretty safe in saying that Show Boat was not registered. But otherwise yes a show registers at some point before it opens and normally around the time it secures a theatre. Shows obviously call themselves Broadway bound all the time, and as we know most of those shows never make it. I have no idea when SOR registered but it was not likely that it was when they announced it unless they had a theatre simultaneously. (Otherwise, it would just be "Broadway bound" although -as is sometimes the case- the people involved make it much more likely than if, say, you and I announce we are producing a Broadway show.) For most shows, there is nothing to "decide" about the registration because it is obvious that 99+% are qualified (and yes that includes Paramour). Finally, I'll just mention that legitimate also has meaning aside from in the Broadway context, both in the Variety expression "legit" which originally was distinguished from burlesque or vaudeville, and in England where until the late 1800s meant "serious" theatre such that even comedies and melodramas were "illegitimate."