14 Facts About Broadway musical

Broadway musical moved to New York in 1753, performing ballad operas and ballad-farces like Damon and Phillida.

Broadway's first "long-run" musical was a 50-performance hit called The Elves in 1857.

In 1870, the heart of Broadway musical was in Union Square, and by the end of the century, many theatres were near Madison Square.

Theatres arrived in the Times Square area in the early 1900s, and the Broadway musical theatres consolidated there after a large number were built around the square in the 1920s and 1930s.

However, smaller vaudeville and variety houses proliferated, and Off-Broadway musical was well established by the end of the 19th century.

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Trip to Coontown was the first musical comedy entirely produced and performed by African Americans in a Broadway theatre, followed by the ragtime-tinged Clorindy: The Origin of the Cakewalk, and the highly successful In Dahomey .

Lightnin' was the longest-running Broadway musical show until being overtaken in performance totals by Abie's Irish Rose in 1925.

Florenz Ziegfeld produced annual spectacular song-and-dance revues on Broadway musical featuring extravagant sets and elaborate costumes, but there was little to tie the various numbers together.

The majority of Broadway musical theatres are owned or managed by three organizations: the Shubert Organization, a for-profit arm of the non-profit Shubert Foundation, which owns seventeen theatres; the Nederlander Organization, which controls nine theatres; and Jujamcyn, which owns five Broadway musical houses.

Broadway musical once had many homegrown stars who committed to working on a show for a year, as Nathan Lane has for The Addams Family.

In 2010, some theater heavyweights like Mr Lane were not even nominated; instead, several Tony Awards were given for productions that were always intended to be short-timers on Broadway musical, given that many of their film-star performers had to move on to other commitments.

Minimum size of the Broadway musical orchestra is governed by an agreement with the musicians' union and The Broadway musical League.

Some Broadway musical shows are produced by non-commercial organizations as part of a regular subscription season—Lincoln Center Theatre, Roundabout Theatre Company, Manhattan Theatre Club, and Second Stage Theater are the four non-profit theatre companies that currently have permanent Broadway musical venues.

Many Broadway musical theatres offer special student rates, same-day "rush" or "lottery" tickets, or standing-room tickets to help ensure that their theatres are as full—and their grosses as high—as possible.