Musicals with longest time-spans?

Ok so: I don't mean the length of the show, I don't mean how long the show has been running... I mean, which shows cover the longest span of time throughout the story? It occurs to me that the story in most musicals spans just a few days or months at most - I'm curious about musicals that span years, decades, as I think that portraying that is a unique challenge, and am curious as to how writers deal with it (as someone who's considering writing an epic biographical piece spanning decades). Ones I could think of:

The Last Five Years - takes place over the course of (obviously) 5 years

Hamilton - spans several decades

Les Miserables - spans several decades

Wicked - spans an unspecified number of years?

Dreamgirls - multiple years, not sure how many

Fun Home - the story takes place over many years albeit not chronologically

Merrily We Roll Along - multiple years

The Color Purple - multiple years

Gypsy - multiple years

Would say Follies, but really the story only spans one evening, with flashbacks to the past, same with Hedwig.

This is probably not a super interesting question to anyone else, but I would love it if other people contributed, let me know if I'm missing anything! If you're not sure if it's relevant, suggest it anyway! Thanksss xx

Thought of some more:

Grey Gardens, Miss Saigon, Jersey Boys, Showboat

Ha, true!

The Apple Tree technically goes from the Adam and Eve creation myth to modern times. The caveat is that it's three short musicals connected by theme rather than a singular narrative.

Songs for a New World goes from 1492 to present, but it's a song cycle.

Drowsy Chaperone is another interesting wrinkle on the idea. It takes place in one night, but it's flashing back in real time to a Broadway show from almost a century before.

A Connecticut Yankee goes from 1920s or 40s (depending on the version) to the late 5th/early 6th century of King Arthur's court.

I'm pretty sure Aida has to have the longest time span because of the prologue/epilogue and the time of those is specified as the present, so the span grows every year.

Depending on how you define it -

Excluding the opening and closing number, Hamilton spans 30 years exactly. He is nineteen (but his mind is older!) in Aaron Burr, Sir/My Shot and he dies at the age of 49.

Including the opening number, it goes from his birth (1755 or 1757, current thinking favours '57) to Eliza's death in 1854, so nearly 100 years total



Les Mis starts at 1815 as Valjean is getting released, and goes till... well, the june rebellion was 1832, so probably no more than a year or two after that. 15ish years. Much less than I would have guessed before I actually looked at the numbers, eep. That makes cosette like 18 when she gets married.

carolinaguy said: "Technically, Aida spans millennia because of the prologue and epilogue in the museum."

Good thinking! I was thinking Sunday in the Park With George till you posted this.

Similarly, does Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat start with the narrator in modern times? I haven’t seen the show in decades so my memory is fuzzy. If so, then that show would span several millennia too.

Mame also spans several decades as well, starting in the 1920's before the 1929 Stock Market Crash when her nephew, Patrick, is a little boy going through his college years and in the final scene taking his son, her great nephew on a trip to India.

Boy from Oz comes to time as it covers Allen's life from childhood to death. So maybe 35-40 years depending on what you'd pinpoint his age as a child to be. Not the longest (AIDA defeats all comers here) but worth mentioning.

Children of Eden goes from the beginning of the creation of the universe through... how many generations of Adam? Nine? Ten?

Beautiful, Get On Your Feet, Summer, and The Cher Show all start with them in their early teens up to at least 50 plus.

gypsy, Magnolia doesn't look 56 at the end of any production of SHOW BOAT I've seen (not to mention Gaylord is probably 10 years older than she and--given life expectancy at the turn of the 20th century--must be a very old 70 by the time the curtain comes down. But, yes, you are right that, as musicals go, a great deal of time passes.

MACK AND MABEL begins roughly with Mack's discovery of 16-year-old Mabel and ends with her death at 38. So there's 22 years--at least the second act of which takes place after Mabel walks out of Mack's life, which is why the show always falls flat, NOT the sad fact that she eventually dies.

FUNNY GIRL spans 19 years if one relies on Brice's actual ages when the show's events occurred.

20+ years must elapse in BRIGHT STAR, since the "flashback" half of the story occurs a full generation earlier than the "present day" half.

And, setting aside dramatic frames such as those of PHANTOM and AIDA (because they don't really tell us much about the sense of time passing during the actual plot), we might have a winner in I DO! I DO! The IBDB entry has the following setting (taken I assume from the show's libretto):

"Setting: A bedroom. The story covers fifty years of marriage, beginning just before the turn of the century." (Emphasis added.)

Updated On: 10/2/18 at 03:25 AM

Lauren2 said: "Well you would have to include HP (although it is not musical) because it includes Harry as a child and a kid."

Which reminds me of PETER PAN, at least the musical. (I saw a children's theater version of the original, but that was 50 years ago!)

Doesn't the last scene show the return of Peter, who comes back only to discover that time passes more quickly in our world and Wendy is now grown up, with children of her own? Surely Wendy was no more than 12 in the earlier scenes, so she needed a decade to grow up and get married, then another 12 years or so for her own daughter to be played by the girl who played young Wendy earlier.

So a total of at least 22, probably a couple more, years.

Updated On: 10/2/18 at 03:48 AM