Plays on broadway

While the west end's longest running show is the mousetrap, which is a play. Broadway's longest running show is is the phantom of the opera. Why doesn't have longer running plays. Only once in a while we get a national theatre production such as the curious incedent and war horse which run for 2 years. When will we have a play that runs 50+ years.

It kind of means broadway is dumbing down for all of America.

Once upon a time, the three longest-running Broadway shows were plays. Life With Father remained the longest-running show until Fiddler passed it.

As of today, those same three plays remain the three longest-running plays ever on Broadway.

What does that tell us about today's Broadway? Nothing good, that's for sure. But then, we don't need anything to tell us that!

Mousetrap is hardly a scholarly work.

I love plays...that alone hardly makes me an intellectual.

Call_me_jorge said: "It kind of means broadway is dumbing down for all of America.

How? There are musicals that can make you think just as much, if not more, than many plays. A show shouldn't be judged on whether or not it includes singing.

No Broadway play or musical has run 50 years. It will never happen.

The most recent new Broadway play to run more than 500 performances was Proof (2000) and it ran for 917 performances.

It would be a surprise if any new play ran for a 1000 performances on Broadway. Long running plays are probably a thing of the past. This does not mean there has been a dumbing down of Broadway or theatre in the United States. One of the best new plays, I've seen is SWEAT by Lynn Nottage. It opens at Arena Stage next month. If it comes to New York, great. If it comes to Broadway, I hope they don't cast "stars" to mess it up.

After Eight lives in a Neil Simon/Jean Kerr world. MARY, MARY was a big hit in its day, but it has never been revived on Broadway. I don't think it would appeal to today's audience. For a number of years, some Neil Simon show would run for over 1000 performances. His last hit was LOST IN YONKERS ran for 780 performances. (Six Degrees of Separation should have won the Pulitzer Prize). The last new Simon play to open in Broadway was 45 SECONDS FROM BROADWAY which ran for 73 performances. Like many other successful playwrights, Simon's time is past. In my younger days, I liked Neil Simon, but when I downsized my library, I sold all his plays I owned. I kept many comedies written between 1920 and 1950. Many of them are better than anything Simon wrote. I'd be surprised if any Simon play entered the American canon.

We Americans have heirlooms, think of The Fantastiks.

"We Americans have heirlooms, think of The Fantastiks."

I prefer Scrubbing Bubbles myself.

"

After Eight,

If it doesn't bring you pleasure, why do you keep going to the theatre? Are you a critic who has to see every show? Most people who post here like some shows and don't like others. On the other hand, you hate every new show. I'm beginning to think your hate is the only thing keeping you alive. Why don't you stay home, reading the playbills from shows you love and playing the original cast recordings of shows you love.

I wonder. Are you longing for the days when women stayed home, blacks rode in the back of the bus and homosexuals stayed in the closet? Were you happier back then?