Here's a trivia challenge for everyone:
What are some often-produced or well-known plays that have never played Broadway? Perhaps some of Shakespeare's works haven't had a 'lights up' on the Great White Way?
does The Fantasticks count? obviously not Shakespeare, but well known and never on Broadway.
BAT BOY
A New Brain!!
Legends!
W;t was the first show that came to my mind
The Wizard of Oz and Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella. They've both played Madison Square Garden, but I don't think that counts as Broadway, though I'm not sure why since the theatre has enough seats. Is it just not a "sanctioned" Broadway house?
BARE
Broadway Legend Joined: 2/22/08
Tick Tick Boom
Tina and Tony's Wedding
Titus Andronicus
Vanities
Marvin's Room
Landscape of the Body
The Boys Next Door
How I Learned to Drive (Pulitzer)
A Coupla White Chicks Sitting Around Talking
The Normal Heart
Stuff Happens
I'm Getting My Act Together...
and, still surprising:
Driving Miss Daisy (Pulitzer, Oscar..)
Broadway Legend Joined: 1/3/05
The Last 5 Years
Broadway Legend Joined: 10/13/05
ELISABETH
The musical
A huge success in Austria, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, Hungary, and Japan...
Look it up, it's something fantastic.
Hedwig and the Angry Inch
Stand-by Joined: 6/18/08
To be designated a Broadway theatre, a theatre must be in the "Broadway Box" (loosely 41 to 54 streets and 6-9 ave) and must serve as a legitimate theatre house, housing theatrical productions, for most of its operating hours.
(Lincoln Center is the exception to the box rule- but it does house theatrical productions for the whole year.)
It must also be a member of the Broadway League.
Madison Square Garden is none of these, and is therefore not a Broadway house.
Broadway Legend Joined: 10/10/08
Songs for a New World
Little Shop of Horrors (until 2004)
Assassins (until 2004)
Zombie Prom
Notre Dame (no, not the Disney version)
I'm surprised no one said the Kopit/Yeston
PHANTOM!
Broadway Star Joined: 12/16/06
I was also going to say The Wizard of Oz. Let's hope Andrew Lloyd Webber's isn't the one to debut here.
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/27/05
The Last Five Years, I believe
Is Beaumarchais's Figaro trilogy well-known? I don't believe that's ever been on Broadway.
Broadway Legend Joined: 2/20/04
Children of Eden
Nunsense
How about High School Musical? Yep, sure it started as a movie, is adapted to the stage and never played even off-Broadway. Yet it was one of the most produced high school production last year (#5):
http://www.playbill.com/news/article/117832.html
And local productions (i.e. North Shore Music Theatre in MA) produced it as was because it meant $$ at the time. Disney has made hand over fist from that franchise.
High School Musical
We Will Rock You - Very popular with UK schools/colleges, dunno about in America
Fame - Has been on in the UK for YONKS! Don't think its ever been on Broadway
GODSPELL
Scrooge the musical
The Witches of Eastwick
Godspell ran for over a year on Broadway opening in 1976.
The Mousetrap
Forever Plaid
Tanz der Vampire (DOTV does not count, it was not by any means the show that has run successfully in Europe and Asia)
It's a shame Broadway will likely never see the real Tanz der Vampire. Wonderful show. I adored the production at Theater des Westens in Berlin. I would like to see a transfer of Elisabeth as well. I've never seen the show, but it's been a massive hit in Europe and Japan (it is a staple of the Takarazuka company) for over 15 years spawning 20+ cast recordings and 10 DVDs. It's quite staggering the show has never seen a Broadway transfer, though I can only assume Broadway producers believe the subject won't connect with American audiences. And it's not like the popular French spectacle, Notre Dame de Paris, which died almost entirely unnoticed in Vegas (and literally put me to sleep in London).
Videos