13 Facts About Broadway theater

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

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

In 1870, the heart of Broadway theater 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 theater 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 theater 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 theater theatre, followed by the ragtime-tinged Clorindy: The Origin of the Cakewalk, and the highly successful In Dahomey .

Lightnin' was the longest-running Broadway theater 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 theater featuring extravagant sets and elaborate costumes, but there was little to tie the various numbers together.

The majority of Broadway theater 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 theater houses.

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

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

Some Broadway 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 venues.

Many Broadway theater 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.