Longest Running Time of a Broadway Show

I was curious to know what the longest running time of a broadway show ever. Not the time it has been on broadway but rather the duration of the show itself.

For musicals I did a quick google search and discovered that both Les Mis and Miss Saigon were 2 hrs and 50 mins with an intermission.

For plays Wolf Hall came to mind and each part was 2 hrs and 45 mins (i dont know whether or not that includes an intermission)



I was wondering if anyone knew what play and what musical actually has the longest duration.

I can't give you a definitive answer, but I can tell you for sure that nothing 3-hours-long comes close. Even just this season, Long Day's Journey was 3h 45m.

The longest show I've ever seen was The Iceman Cometh at BAM (5 hours long). It wasn't Broadway, but I would expect that other Broadway productions of Iceman Cometh had similar runtimes.

Another very long one was "The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby," which was performed in 2 parts. The total runtime was 8.5 hours, each part being over 4 hours.

Updated On: 7/1/16 at 03:53 PM

Many of O'Neill's plays are quite long. Strange Interlude and Mourning Becomes Electra both run between 4-5 hours, depending on the production. I've seen productions of Long Day's Journey Into Night that run as short as under 3 hours (the Jack Lemmon production on Broadway, and the David Suchet/Laurie Metcalf West End Revival) or over 4 hours (the 2003 Broadway revival). This season's revival was generally pretty much in the middle and was shortened mostly by the fact that it only utilized one intermission. I don't think it would be possible to do The Iceman Cometh in less than 4 hours and probably closer to 5.

If memory serves, Harvey Fierstein's Torch Song Trilogy is quite long (pushing 4 hours).

Updated On: 7/1/16 at 04:08 PM

The first SHUFFLE ALONG preview was 4 hours, wasn't it?

Shuffle Along wasn't ever O'Neill length, but it was close.

Gatz was almost seven hours, The Life and Times Episodes 1-4 was eight hours.

Strange Interlude ran five hours in its original production, Hamlet runs over 4 when produced in full.

How long is each part of Angels in America? I know the whole thing tends to be about eight hours or so, but I'm not sure if one part is longer than the other.

RaisedOnMusicals said: "Part 2 of Nicholas Nickleby ran 4 1/2 hours according to some research I just did. It had two 12 min intervals. "



Thank you for reminding me of that great theatrical event. I remember being cowed at the running time before I saw it, but it turned out to be completely enthralling and the time flew by.

Longest I've ever seen outside of Broadway was 12 hours. Taylor Mac is coming out with a 24-hour-long piece.

I thought "Torch Song Trilogy" was over 3 hours when I saw it many years ago.

Peter2 said: "RaisedOnMusicals said: "Part 2 of Nicholas Nickleby ran 4 1/2 hours according to some research I just did. It had two 12 min intervals. "

Thank you for reminding me of that great theatrical event. I remember being cowed at the running time before I saw it, but it turned out to be completely enthralling and the time flew by.



I agree. I saw both parts in one day and when it ended, I wanted it to continue. The time flew by. I wanted to spend more time with this incredible ensemble of actors. It is still one of the top theatrical performances I have ever seen or ever will see. It was just that special.





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Of the ones I've seen the first few previews of America Psycho were over 3hrs long and A Streetcar Named Desire off Broadway was 3.5hrs long.

The Ring Cycle uncut is over 15 hours long...but presented as four operas on four successive evenings. That's not really what is being discussed here. (And when we discuss opera, it should be acknowledged that a lot of the length of some opera evenings come from the long intermissions)