Which current shows will still be open in 5 years?

Jersey boys isn't going to last much longer judging by their grosses. I don't think Chicago will either.

i think in 5 years we will still have wicked, Book of Mormon, Hamilton, beautiful and Aladdin. It is rare these days for shows to become "long running".

I still think we're in the final days of Jersey Boys. Then again, I've been saying that for a year now, so who really knows? I think we've got another 3-4 years of Beautiful. Aladdin all depends on what Disney's Frozen strategy is going to be, and Chicago is Chicago. It will never end (and deservedly so).

Also, I would consider Hamilton and Book of Mormon to be equally solid locks of being open in 2021 as Wicked, Lion King, and Phantom.

@z5: I don't think any of those three shows will be open by 2021 (I predict at least one of them will shutter within the coming year, actually).

I can see Hamilton enduring as well. It's still sold pretty far out, and as soon as it starts to hit that point where seats are available, they'll fill fast. You add the repeat visits and I think it's pretty solid for some time to come.

Some of these Disney shows never cease to amaze. I'm a Disney fan, and even worked for the company for ten years, but I still see shows like Aladdin (even though I did like it) as glorified theme park shows. A Disneyland show with tons of money thrown at it. And as some have pointed out, The Lion King, while good, was something I remember little about outside of the opening number.

Disney has tapped into its audience though and it gives tourists with kids a place to go with the knowledge they'll be seeing a show that's safe.

Phantom

Wicked

Lion King

Hamilton

The Book of Mormon

Maybe or even quite likely:
Aladdin, Beautiful, Chicago



I don't think anything else currently running stands a chance of still being here in 5 yrs.

Updated On: 5/29/16 at 12:51 PM

Because School of Rock was mentioned, I'm just going to throw this out there... Having seen Matilda at least once a year since it came out, I noticed that one of their biggest problems was consistently keeping a cast of killer amazing dancing 10 year olds. The dancing has gotten less and less impressive as you go... Only so many killer talented kids. I think the problem will be the same for school of Rock... Add on the fact they have to not only be amazing actors, singers and dancers but ALSO play a rock instrument at the Broadway orchestra level... Yikes. I honestly don't see them finding more than 1 replacement cast and then they'd be done as that's the whole point of the show.

jomilo21 said: "Having seen Matilda at least once a year since it came out, I noticed that one of their biggest problems was consistently keeping a cast of killer amazing dancing 10 year olds. The dancing has gotten less and less impressive as you go... Only so many killer talented kids. I think the problem will be the same for school of Rock...

"

While I don't disagree that it's hard to get amazingly talented. 10 year olds, I respectfully disagree it had to do with original cast vs replacements. Having seen Matilda too many times to mention, there were some later dancers and cast members that were stronger than the original cast kids IMO. It's a matter of finding them at whatever time you are casting or recasting. I do think the show seems a bit tired lately in general but that might have been the particular performance I saw.

Updated On: 5/29/16 at 02:24 PM

I dare say all the obvious ones. Although the OP's logic on Hamilton kind of makes sense. But the same was also thought about Wicked back when and here we are :) While Lin is the show's poster child, I truly don't think it quite revolves around him staying it it to remain open. Again, heavens knows I've been proven wrong, but it's not If/Then where it was created for and around Idina, who people were only coming because 'Elsadina'. If she left the show while it was still running, you can't convince me it wouldn't have closed. People love Hamilton for Lin but also it's subject matter and how it's told, and it's sheer creativity. People liked If'Then for Idina.

As for Something Rotten, I mean Frozen has already been announced to take the St. James so it's been announced privately that it will closing, just not publicly. If I recall my show biz legalities, a show can't announce the theater it will occupy until/unless the previous show announces closing at least privately. So there you. And I dare say, SR will be January 2017 victim, since I recall it being said somewhere that it would undergo renovations during it's empty days, and if the now open Disneyland production is any indicator of what they'll do on Broadway, they'll absolutely need the time to renovate.

But I dare say everything else but the obvious 5-6 that certainly will stay around, everything else is up in the air.

Hamilton definitely has staying power. With school groups wanting to see the show on Broadway, it can easily sell entire mezz to school and theater groups years after OBC leaves.

personally I think the only big names on the show were Lin-Manuel and Jonathan Groff before 2015. Of course after the Tonys several more OBC folks will be household names.

Book of Mormon is tricky. It's an adult show and I doubt high schools would send groups to watch it. Who knows though where we will be in 5 years.

It would be interesting to find a thread from years ago predicting which shows would be around in 5 years. I bet there would be some laughable ones. I did a search and nothing came up.

Isn't Andrew Lloyd Webber the only one that can close Phantom at this point? Not sure where I heard that, though it was on this board, and it could be completely incorrec. If that's the case though, I don't see why he'd choose to close it.

I think :

Wicked

Phantom

Lion King

Chicago

Beautiful

Book of Mormon

Hamilton

Aladdin

That's it. Maybe School of Rock, but probably not.

I think the big question mark for Hamilton is how the sound of the show will be considered in 5 years. Part of its current appeal is that the show sounds very contemporary, but that runs the risk of sounding dated a few years later. A traditional-sounding score isn't going to be as "grabby" right away, but it won't sound dated in the future. Also, a lot of the appeal is teen/young adult-driven, which can be a very fickle audience. Look at how fast Glee went from being the hot thing to a ratings disaster (final episode of season 2: 11.80 million viewers; final episode of season 4: 5.92 million viewers; final episode of season 5: 1.87 million viewers).



That being said, Hamilton has such a high level of national consciousness that I can't see it having trouble selling tickets for another 5 years. Whether it can go 10 years is another matter. I have heard a lot of parallels to Rent in terms of national consciousness. Rent also had an unknown cast that became stars because of the show, and the show did fine after the original cast left. Rent ended up lasting for 12 years on Broadway.

Updated On: 5/30/16 at 03:22 PM

Chicago does not have a stop clause with the theater. It will never close.