how many musicals ARE THERE?!
how many musicals ARE THERE?!
#1how many musicals ARE THERE?!
Posted: 7/17/07 at 8:19am
my sister asked me "how many musicals in total are there. i was baffled. at first i rejected the question as ignorant and impossible to define, but then i tried to figure it out.
if we define "musical" as a musical play, STAGED on a professional stage in Broadway/Off-Broadway, or WestEnd/Off-WestEnd or in regional productions by braodway-standard professionals. how many are there?
can you estimate or calculate?how many NEW shows per year in avarage (or per year, per decade) and since when does one start counting? do early 1920's count? (i think not)
grab your calculators, kids.
http://musicalkid.multiply.com/
#2re: how many musicals ARE THERE?!
Posted: 7/17/07 at 8:21am
There are 472 musicals.
What a question!
#2re: how many musicals ARE THERE?!
Posted: 7/17/07 at 8:30am
One... two... three...
*crunch*
Three.
blocked: logan2, Diamonds3, Hamilton22
#3re: how many musicals ARE THERE?!
Posted: 7/17/07 at 8:32am1, 2, 3,,, lots!
#4re: how many musicals ARE THERE?!
Posted: 7/17/07 at 8:33am
Oh dear best12! You made me snort-laugh! 
#5re: how many musicals ARE THERE?!
Posted: 7/17/07 at 8:34am
Of course the early 20's count. So that makes, uhm, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5...
Five.
#6re: how many musicals ARE THERE?!
Posted: 7/17/07 at 8:35am
That's like asking how many books there are...
If authors write an average of ___ books per year...
Seriously impossible.
#7re: how many musicals ARE THERE?!
Posted: 7/17/07 at 8:36am
Does a musical *only* count if it's been performed in NY or the West End? How about all the originals in Berlin or Paris or Rome or Tokyo? Dont they matter as well, or is a musical just someting performed in English? How about all the ones that get such glowing reviews but never make it beyond repertory theatre?
What about operettas? Technically, they're musicals as well, but not many of them ever made it to Broadway but instead were performed in opera houses. Are they out of the cut as well?
#8re: how many musicals ARE THERE?!
Posted: 7/17/07 at 9:12am
. . .5,6,7,8 . . .
The simple answer is: NOT ENOUGH.
#9re: how many musicals ARE THERE?!
Posted: 7/17/07 at 9:15amThanks, OtherDaryl! Someone had to post it. You beat me to it1 (Didn't want to re-post so soon after my initial post!)
#10re: how many musicals ARE THERE?!
Posted: 7/17/07 at 9:42am....but not enough bout cats, helicopters, chandeliers, waifs or nasty nasty witches
philcrosby
Broadway Legend Joined: 2/17/04
#11re: how many musicals ARE THERE?!
Posted: 7/17/07 at 10:43am
The harder question is how many GOOD ones are there (and which ones those are). That will cause even bigger fights.
ErinDillyFan
Broadway Star Joined: 7/14/06
#12Sorry I ran out of digits
Posted: 7/17/07 at 11:15am
100s of thousands, good luck!
This site has every show produced on broadway both musicals and plays:
http://www.ibdb.com/search.asp
here are sites attempting to put together definitive lists of cast albums:
http://www.castalbums.org/
http://www.sfpalm.org/collections/recordings.htm#p
http://www.castalbumdb.com/
http://www.nodanw.com/cast_recordings/
If you add in the movie musicals(all languages), operas, local or school productions of new works, you are talking about thousands of new musicals every year.
Updated On: 7/17/07 at 11:15 AM
evadiva
Broadway Star Joined: 12/9/06
#13Sorry I ran out of digits
Posted: 7/17/07 at 11:38am
"One... two... three...
*crunch*
Three."
I love it! Best 12, as always, you rock!
I'd say it would be fair to count musicals that were produced on or off broadway...... Everything else: too hard to count.
What a cool question!
#14re: how many musicals ARE THERE?!
Posted: 7/17/07 at 11:42amMore than you can count on your fingers and toes?
9/18 - Brian Stokes Mitchell, Cincy Pop's
9/28 - Death Of A Salesman, Wright State
#15Sorry I ran out of digits
Posted: 7/17/07 at 11:58am
thanks to all those who took my post seriousely.
I know it's a rather absurd question, but as musical theater is a rather young artform (as opposed to books) and is rather constntrated in specific places on the globe, i thought it could be possible to try and estimate.
I consider broadway-level original musicals overseas acceptable.(which are more often than not using professionals from b-way/WE)
i think that the best way to figure it out is to make an avarage of broadway musicals per year on every decade. and to add maybe 150 shows of london and overseas. London's original musicals were very few most yers.
anyone agrees?
http://musicalkid.multiply.com/
RockabyeHamlet
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/1/05
#16Sorry I ran out of digits
Posted: 7/17/07 at 12:07pm
3: Wicked, Rent, and Phantom.
All the other ones are merely figments of the imagination.
"People who like Sondheim enjoy cruelty."-LuvtheEmcee
Gothampc
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/20/03
#17Sorry I ran out of digits
Posted: 7/17/07 at 12:18pm
It gets really difficult because you have to include all the great stuff that was off-Broadway. Nunsense, The Fantasticks, Reefer Madness, Annie 2, etc.
Furthermore, there are shows that were headed for Broadway, but never made it: Whistle Down The Wind, Busker Alley (or Goodtime Charley or whatever it was called).
millie_dillmount
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/22/04
#18Sorry I ran out of digits
Posted: 7/17/07 at 12:48pmWow, best, you read my mind! I was totally gonna post that.
#19Sorry I ran out of digits
Posted: 7/17/07 at 1:36pm
I know it's a rather absurd question, but as musical theater is a rather young artform (as opposed to books)
Well, if we want to do creative interpretation, musical theatre (as opera and whatnot; hell, Shakespeare didn't really balk at throwing songs into his work) is a bit older than books as we know 'em. It's only really the last couple of hundred years, I believe, that have seen them become such an everyday entertainment. ^^
#20Sorry I ran out of digits
Posted: 7/17/07 at 6:21pm
i thought it would be obvious, that when i said musicals (or anyone else for that matter) i mean the kind of musical-plays that's said to begin around the 1920's in america. the kind WE talk about in BBW, when using freely the term "musicals". no one will misunderstand and think we were talking of a greek play with songs, right?
by "a young artform" i clearly narrowed the selection to the musicals produced in america (and influenced by the american musical) since approximately 100 years ago , (according to PBS' BROADWAY: The American Musical)
http://musicalkid.multiply.com/
Dollypop
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/15/03
#21Sorry I ran out of digits
Posted: 7/17/07 at 6:24pm
To help you out, let me start counting my Playbills.
1, 2, 3, 4, ............
I'll get back to you.
Unknown User
Joined: 12/31/69
#22Sorry I ran out of digits
Posted: 7/17/07 at 9:43pm
So things like Bare and Zanna, Don't! and Billy Elliot and everything that hasn't exactly made it to Broadway (well, B.E. is coming!!) count? Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.... why ask? Why not just huggle all of them??
And what about the movies, like Kiss Me, Kate and My Fair Lady and everything?
P.S.: Can we not count the Sound of Music? Because I dearly hate that show, as annoyingly good as it is.
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