The Phantom of the Opera played for thirty-five years. Merrily We Roll Along closed in twelve days. Here is every major Broadway book musical since 1927, measured end to end.
Swipe sideways to move through time
What qualifiesA Broadway run of 1,000 or more performances, or a Tony nomination for Best Musical. Recent shows have not had time to reach 1,000, which is what the Tony rule is for.
Book musicals onlyRevues, dance shows, tribute concerts and plays are excluded. That leaves out several of the longest runs on Broadway, among them Oh! Calcutta!, Dancin' and Life with Father.
Bars are calendar timeA bar shows how long a production was open, not how many performances it gave. Shows playing more than the standard eight a week climbed the performance rankings faster than their bars suggest. Tap or hover for both numbers.
The pandemic shutdownBroadway went dark from March 12, 2020 to September 14, 2021, marked here by the hatched stripe. Most shows paused and reopened, so their bars run straight through it. Frozen closed for good, as did the West Side Story revival, which had opened just three weeks earlier.
Era boundariesColor marks the era a title first opened. 1943 and 1994 are clear dividing lines. The rest are judgment calls: the concept era could as easily begin with Company in 1970 as with Cabaret in 1966.
OmissionsReturn engagements under about forty performances, along with benefit and concert stagings.