Broadway Shows

Current shows that are playing are Wicked(evil side of wizard of OZ) The Addams Family, Chicago, Memphis, Promises Promises, Million Dollar Quartet, Come Fly Away, Everyday Rapture, Avenue Q, Blue Man Group, The phantom of the Opera and A Little Night Music.

I will be talking about Wicked. I have found information on show times from broadway.com. Prices for this show start at $76.25 and up. Along with ticket pricing the different show times are also posted on this website. The shows are everyday usually starting around 2pm 7 pm or 8pm. This broad way production is being showed at Gershwin Theatre at 222 west 51^st Street, New York, NY. This is in the Paramount Plaza Building in Manhattan.

The Gershwin theatre, use to be called Uris Theater until 1983 where it was renamed during the tony awards to honor the composer George Gershwin, was opened in 1972. This theater became from the first largest Broadway Theater since the completion in 1931 of the Earl Carroll Theater. This theater holds 1,933 people and houses the Theater Hall of Fame. The Architect was Ralph Alswang erected this building for a mere $12.5 million upon the old site of the Capitol Theatre.

Some other milestones of Broadway would have to be the longest-running shows. Some of these would be 1. The Phantom of the Opera which opened on January 26, 1988. They have done more than 9259 performances of this play. This musical play has won seven Tony Awards and Best Musical back in 1988. 2. Cats which opened October 7^th, 1982 and finally closed on September 10^th, 2000. In those eighteen years of production they have achieved 7,485 shows. All of those performances amounted to several Tony Awards, one being Best Musical in 1988. They also received a Grammy Award for Best Cast Show Album.3. Les Miserables This production opened March 12^th, 1987 and closed May 18^th, 2003. They had a grand total of six thousand six hundred eighty shows. They also received 8 Tony Awards just like the top 2 longest shows (The Phantom of the Opera& Cats) including Best Musical. Also in 1988 they won Outstanding Musical Grammy Award for Best Musical Cast Show Album. They also have five more Drama Desk Awards. All of these longest Broadway productions have also been the highest grossing Broadway shows all of time.

The Phantom of the Opera has the highest gross profit at $766,547,321 with an average ticket price of $39.22. That means they have sold over 13,734,084 seats. In close second come The Lion King preformed at New Amsterdam Theater is in the heart of Time Square. The Lion King has sold 8,850,662 seats for an outstanding gross profit of $694,886,136. With $79.13 being the average seat price that is a lot of performances. Wicked comes in third at $462,158,458 gross, average ticket $94.98, 4.8 million seats sold during 2,694 regularly performed shows. Andrew Lloyd Webber, Showman, made $56 million with his longest running show Phantom of the Opera. Second Elton John, Musician, is said to have made $34 million with his compositions in The Lion King and Aida. Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane, both actors, make $9 million each and are original stars of The Producers. They have the largest paid leads on Broadway. This is just not for entertainment; this is a business trying to make an easy style living for everyone who wants to work for it.

Some of Broadway theaters are haunted. Radio City Music Hall is said to have S.L. “Roxy” Rothafel, contractor in charge of building the music hall and a beautiful female that always seem to get tickets on opening nights. I see that as good luck. Other famous ghosts were David Belasco who haunts the Belasco Theatre, in midtown-Manhattan. His ghost is given the alias “The Monk”. The Monk would appear in the crowd and sometime communicate with the actors letting them know that he enjoyed the performance. He would also smoke a cigar in the theatre during a production. There is always the superstitions about breaking legs and Macbeth that still haunt the less weak of minds with in Broadway.