Who has been good to Broadway?

I've been reading the 'Disney: Good Or Bad For Broadway' thread with interest. I'm surprised by how many people think it's a good thing. Myself, I'm not sure yet. And it got me thinking, who else has been good for Broadway? For example, a lot of people on this board love Sondheim, but has anything he done been perceived as damaging to Broadway. Similarly, has Brooklyn any redeeming features? And let's think about ALW and Wicked too. And anything else anyone has to contribute! Big question!

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Ed Sullivan, and later on Rosie O'Donnell, by showcasing Broadway performances on their respective shows. The Today show should probably be included here for the same reason.

Hugh Jackman showed us a true star could not only rise above mediocre material but be a total sellout. It's also a rarity to have a show selling so well close rather than replace the star once his contract expired. I can't recall the last time a production actually closed down to give its star performer a vacation. They didn't do it for Glenn Close in "Sunset Blvd" (although ALW tried fudging the box office receipts while she was gone to prove the show was star-proof which it wasn't). John Stamos proved on the other hand that although "Nine", which received decent reviews and might have run longer, did not because the audiences were there to see Bandaris and once he left the ticket sales nose dived.

Roundabout and to a lesser extent MTC...

Sum- just out of curiosity, do you hate the English mega-musicals? Because the fact that they're completely "cast-proof" is something a lot of people hold against them, but you're holding it up as a virtue in Cabaret.

That is a very interesting point Plum. While I certainly don't HATE the Mega-Musicals, I don't appreciate them. I think about the shows that could have gone into those houses and it saddens me a little bit. I wonder what exactly made those musicals cast-proof. Was it the score? The book? The sets? The name recognition?

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Why would you dislike a show that is capable of a long run? You'd rather see a show like The Phantom of the Opera close while it's still doing very well, just so another show can go into the theatre and, most likely, fail? I thought Broadway was supposed to be for the best of the best, not just whoever can snag the next open theatre.

So replace it with any other long-running show that you like. Then, maybe you can answer the question.

Anyway, a serious argument can be made that at a certain point, having too many really long-running shows occupying the theaters leads to some stagnation because new shows can't get in. I mean, I know the situation won't last, but right now, only 1 theater on Broadway is dark. Lots of promising productions, from Sweeney Todd to Jerry Springer, are up in the air because of that.