2356 ways in.

A collection is a question the catalogue can answer: how many shows have an exclamation mark in the title, say.

Week7

Winners of the Tony for Best Musical

74 productions

Winners of the Tony for Best Musical, every year from 1949 on.

Older than the show they belong to

127 shows

These shows have a production listed that opened before the show was written. Gypsy has stagings from 1903 and 1929, decades before the 1959 musical, because two different works en…

Set outside America

75 shows

Shows set outside America — Paris, Vienna, Siam, and a few kingdoms that only ever existed on a stage.

Before 1920

3,030 shows

The Black Crook in 1866 through to 1919. Recording barely existed for most of this, so what survives is paper.

Shows that played once

407 productions

Shows that played once. Some are disasters — six opened and shut at the Nora Bayes in 1923 alone. Others are benefits and galas that were only ever meant to happen once. The data r…

Runs past 2,000 performances

39 productions

Runs of 2,000 performances or more. Phantom of the Opera gave 13,981. The Lion King has passed ten thousand and is still going.

Revivals that outran the original

247 shows

Revivals that ran longer than the original. Chicago managed 936 performances in 1975 and 9,999 when it came back. Candide ran 73 nights in 1956 and returned for 740.

Themes29

Crossings22

People10

Company7

Songs44

Titles12

Titles with an exclamation mark

177 shows

Titles with an exclamation mark. Oh, Kay! Lady, Be Good! Hit The Deck! Hooray For What! Nearly all of them are from before 1940. Then it stopped.

Named for a colour

195 shows

The Black Crook (1866) to The Color Purple (2005) — musicals named for a colour.

Titles that start with "Sweet"

24 shows

Sweet Adeline. Sweet Little Devil. Sweet Charity, twice — 1966 and its 1986 revival. Sweet Smell of Success. Every one of them opens on the same word.

One-word titles

1,394 shows

Sally. Irene. Sinbad. Maytime. Gypsy. Hair. Chicago. Rent. Titles cut down to a single word.

Named for a woman

72 shows

Sally, Irene, Rosalie, Nanette, Gypsy, Evita, Annie, Mame, Dolly, Fanny, Carmen, Kitty, Peggy, Sunny, Nina, Marinka, Lulu, Maggie, Molly, Tilly, Polly, Lucy, Jenny, Nellie, Rosie,…

Dated on the poster

402 shows

Follies of 1907. Blackbirds of 1928. New Faces of 1952. 402 shows put a number in the title, and most of them are annuals announcing that last year's edition is over.

"A New Musical"

9 shows

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn "A New Musical". Carnival in Flanders "A Musical Comedy". For a few years in the early fifties the billing was part of the title, because the producers wer…

The long titles

198 shows

Forty characters and up, before the subtitle has even started. Shuffle Along, Or The Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed is the longest here and The Curio…

Mister, Missus, Madam

357 shows

Call Me Madam. Mr Wonderful. Miss Liberty. The honorific title is a promise about the leading role and it is almost always kept.

Two things joined by "and"

499 shows

Guys and Dolls. Kiss Me, Kate has no and; Porgy and Bess does. 499 titles are a pairing, which is the oldest way in English to promise a story about two people who want different t…

Titles that give you an order

200 shows

Stop the World — I Want to Get Off. Follow the Girls. Hold Everything! Let 'Em Eat Cake. Look, Ma, I'm Dancin'! Titles that are a command, not a description.

Named for somewhere

237 shows

Oklahoma! Brigadoon. Chicago. Carousel is not a place and Camelot is. 237 shows take their name from a location, real or invented, which commits the set designer before a word is w…

Sources5

From a novel

21 shows

Somebody read it first. Cry, the Beloved Country became Lost in the Stars; Voltaire became Candide; a 1957 novel about San Francisco became Flower Drum Song.

From a film

18 shows

All About Eve became Applause. Some Like It Hot became Sugar. 8½ became Nine. Films that got turned into stage musicals.

From a play

15 shows

A straight play with the songs added. Pygmalion became My Fair Lady, Green Grow the Lilacs became Oklahoma!, and Charley's Aunt became Where's Charley?

Based on something else

161 shows

Every show here is based on something — a novel, a film, a play, somebody's life.

Classics, reimagined

8 shows

Wicked tells the Wizard of Oz from the witches' side. West Side Story moves Romeo and Juliet to a New York gang war. SIX gives Henry VIII's six wives the stage as a pop group to te…

Places3

Hollywood

17 shows

Shows about Hollywood, written mostly by people who had worked there. Matched on the name anywhere in the synopsis, so these are shows about the place rather than shows set in it.

Set in Africa

5 shows

Golden Dawn takes place in East Africa during the First World War. Tarzan is raised by gorillas in West Africa. Aida is ancient Egypt and Nubia. Timbuktu! moves Kismet's Baghdad to…

Set in the American South

13 shows

Porgy and Bess is Catfish Row in Charleston. Big River follows the Mississippi. The Scottsboro Boys is a 1930s Alabama courtroom. Memphis is Tennessee, not the Egyptian city its ti…

Form4

Jukebox

12 shows

Built from songs that already existed. Jersey Boys, Movin' Out, Rock of Ages, Million Dollar Quartet, Mamma Mia!

No plot required

117 shows

Revues, follies, scandals and vanities — sketches, songs and showgirls, produced fresh every season. Broadway put up a new one almost every year for thirty years.

The title song

111 shows

Sally sings Sally. Hello, Dolly! says hello to Dolly. Shows with a song that carries the show's own name.

Twenty-five songs or more

21 shows

Twenty-five numbers or more. Before the book musical settled down, a score could run to forty songs and nobody thought it strange.

Shape14

Recordings8

Rights13

Eras25

Partnerships14

Composer101

Lyricist75

Book61

Directed by36

Choreographed by36

Produced by9

On stage1585

Careers6

Houses209

At the Lyceum Theatre 321
At the James Earl Jones Theatre 256
At the Booth Theatre 248
At the Longacre Theatre 218
At the Belasco Theatre 214
At the Playhouse Theatre 193
At the Broadhurst Theatre 188
At the Brooks Atkinson Theatre 187
At the Nederlander Theatre 187
At the Wallacks Theatre 186
At the Broadway Theatre 184
At the Shubert Theatre 182
At the Bijou Theatre 179
At the Empire Theatre 176
At the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre 175
At the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre 175
At the Ethel Barrymore Theatre 174
At the Al Hirschfeld Theatre 173
At the John Golden Theatre 169
At the Morosco Theatre 167
At the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre 163
At the Knickerbocker Theatre 162
At the Hudson Theatre 156
At the Lyric Theatre 151
At the New Amsterdam Theatre 151
At the Winter Garden Theatre 146
At the Music Box Theatre 144
At the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre 143
At the 48th Street Theatre 135
At the Garrick Theatre 135
At the Dalys Theatre 132
At the Majestic Theatre 126
At the Ambassador Theatre 125
At the Henry Millers Theatre 125
At the Neil Simon Theatre 125
At the Maxine Elliotts Theatre 122
At the Vivian Beaumont Theater 122
At the Fulton Theatre 118
At the American Airlines Theatre 116
At the Princess Theatre 115
At the American Theatre 109
At the Casino Theatre 108
At the Haverlys 14th Street Theatre 105
At the Helen Hayes Theater 105
At the August Wilson Theatre 104
At the Comedy Theatre 103
At the Eugene O'Neill Theatre 103
At the Star Theatre 103
At the Circle in the Square Theatre 101
At the St. James Theatre 101
At the Ritz Theatre 99
At the New Century Theatre 94
At the Garden Theatre 93
At the Liberty Theatre 88
At the Richard Rodgers Theatre 88
At the 44th Street Theatre 87
At the Helen Hayes Theatre 81
At the Imperial Theatre 78
At the Palace Theatre 77
At the City Center 76
At the Anta Playhouse 75
At the George Gershwin Theatre 74
At the Herald Square Theatre 74
At the Hoyts Theatre 74
At the Criterion Theatre 73
At the Vanderbilt Theatre 73
At the Grand Opera House 68
At the 39th Street Theatre 67
At the Gielgud Theatre 63
At the 49th Street Theatre 62
At the Mark Hellinger Theatre 62
At the Provincetown Playhouse 62
At the New York Theatre 61
At the Niblos Garden 59
At the Center Theatre 58
At the Greenwich Village Theatre 58
At the Park Theatre 57
At the Jolsons 59th Street Theatre 56
At the Adelphi Theatre 55
At the Manhattan Theatre 55
At the Peoples Theatre 55
At the Studio 54 54
At the Fifth Avenue Theatre 53
At the Nora Bayes Theatre 53
At the Tom Stoppard Theatre 53
At the Belmont Theatre 52
At the Apollo Theatre 51
At the Academy Of Music 50
At the Olympic Theatre 49
At the Waldorf Theatre 48
At the Vaudeville Theatre 47
At the Aldwych Theatre 45
At the Eugene Oneill Theatre 44
At the George M Cohans Theatre 44
At the Todd Haimes Theatre 44
At the Astor Theatre 43
At the Gaiety Theatre 43
At the Marquis Theatre 43
At the Noël Coward Theatre 43
At the Punch And Judy Theatre 42
At the Wyndham's Theatre 42
At the Eltinge 42nd Street Theatre 41
At the Minskoff Theatre 41
At the Theatre Masque 41
At the Manhattan Opera House 40
At the Woods Museum And Metropolitan 40
At the Ziegfeld Theatre 40
At the Savoy Theatre 39
At the Theatre Republic 39
At the Times Square Theatre 39
At the Criterion Center Stage Right 36
At the Klaw Theatre 36
At the Phoenix Theatre 36
At the Frolic Theatre 35
At the Civic Repertory Theatre 33
At the Novello Theatre 33
At the Bandbox Theatre 32
At the Duchess Theatre 31
At the London Palladium 31
At the Windsor Theatre 31
At the Sam H Harris Theatre 30
At the Trafalgar Theatre 30
At the Murray Hill Theatre 29
At the Neighborhood Playhouse 28
At the Victoria Palace Theatre 28
At the Union Square Theatre 27
At the Erlangers Theatre 26
At the West End Theatre 26
At the Dalys 63rd Street Theatre 25
At the Harold Pinter Theatre 25
At the Dominion Theatre 24
At the Hackett Theatre 24
At the Harris Theatre 24
At the John Street Theatre 24
At the New Theatre 22
At the Victoria Theatre 22
At the Dalys Fifth Avenue Theatre 21
At the Earl Carroll Theatre 20
At the Palmers Theatre 20
At the Prince of Wales Theatre 20
At the Standard Theatre 20
At the Hayes Theater 19
At the Hippodrome Theatre 19
At the Laura Keenes Theatre 19
At the Booths Theatre 18
At the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane 18
At the Frazee Theatre 18
At the Venue Name Unknown 18
At the Cosmopolitan Theatre 16
At the Webers Music Hall 16
At the Hampdens Theatre 15
At the President Theatre 15
At the Berkeley Lyceum Theatre 14
At the Edison Theatre 14
At the Avon Theatre 13
At the Charles Hopkins Theatre 13
At the Prince Edward Theatre 13
At the Sondheim Theatre 13
At the Wallacks Lyceum Theatre 13
At the Weber And Fields Broadway Music Hall 13
At the Chanins 46th Street Theatre 12
At the Cherry Lane Theatre 12
At the Madison Square Theatre 12
At the 52nd Street Theatre 11
At the Bramhall Playhouse 11
At the Central Theatre 11
At the International Theatre 11
At the New Yorker Theatre 11
At the Stephen Sondheim Theatre 11
At the Thalia Theatre 11
At the Cohan And Harris 10
At the American Laboratory 9
At the Barbizon Plaza Theatre 9
At the Cambridge Theatre 9
At the Circle Theatre 9
At the Craig Theatre 9
At the Harlem Opera House 9
At the Lafayette Theatre 9
At the Lincoln Square Theatre 9
At the Abbeys Theatre 8
At the Apollo Victoria Theatre 8
At the Bowery Theatre 8
At the Carnegie Lyceum 8
At the New Bowery Theatre 8
At the @sohoplace 8
At the Worrell Sisters New York Theatre 8
At the ANTA Washington Square Theatre 7
At the Burtons Chambers Street Theatre 7
At the Century Promenade 7
At the Chanin Auditorium 7
At the Gillian Lynne Theatre 7
At the Harkness Theatre 7
At the Madison Square Roof Garden 7
At the Experimental Theatre 6
At the Her Majesty's Theatre 6
At the Holiday Theatre 6
At the Jardin de Paris 6
At the Lexington Theatre 6
At the Nassau Street Theatre 6
At the Abbeys Park Theatre 5
At the Barnums American Museum 5
At the Barnums New American Museum 5
At the Edyth Totten Theatre 5
At the Mayfair Theatre 5
At the Mercury Theatre 5
At the Miners Fifth Avenue Theatre 5
At the Pikes Opera House 5
At the Rialto Theatre 5
At the Waverley Theatre 5

Buildings14

The Krapp houses 15
Renamed 36
Renamed twice or more 13
Demolished, dark, or gone 259
The barns 33
Under seven hundred seats 23
Open for a century 33
Landmarked 25
Off Broadway 15
Houses that held a monster 40
Houses that never held a hit 139
Who built it 46
The last show before the name changed 24
The first show under the new name 24