Most Famous Broadway Show?
Most Famous Broadway Show?
Steel Pier Fan
Featured Actor Joined: 4/11/11
#1Most Famous Broadway Show?
Posted: 5/1/11 at 6:03pm
Most famous past show and most famous show on broadway.
I'd say its a threeway tie for A Chorus Line, Les Mis and Phantom so Phantom would be most famous still on I'd say but Wicked is getting up there.
bwaylvsong
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/28/05
#2Most Famous Broadway Show?
Posted: 5/1/11 at 6:10pmIf you define famous as "everyone's heard of it," I'd say Phantom and Rent.
#2Most Famous Broadway Show?
Posted: 5/1/11 at 6:14pm
Most famous by name - The Phantom of the Opera
Most famous by music - The Sound of Music
#4Most Famous Broadway Show?
Posted: 5/1/11 at 6:53pm
I agree with CalpYo'Hands.
"You can't overrate Bernadette Peters. She is such a genius. There's a moment in "Too Many Mornings" and Bernadette doing 'I wore green the last time' - It's a voice that is just already given up - it is so sorrowful. Tragic. You can see from that moment the show is going to be headed into such dark territory and it hinges on this tiny throwaway moment of the voice." - Ben Brantley (2022)
"Bernadette's whole, stunning performance [as Rose in Gypsy] galvanized the actors capable of letting loose with her. Bernadette's Rose did take its rightful place, but too late, and unseen by too many who should have seen it" Arthur Laurents (2009)
"Sondheim's own favorite star performances? [Bernadette] Peters in ''Sunday in the Park,'' Lansbury in ''Sweeney Todd'' and ''obviously, Ethel was thrilling in 'Gypsy.'' Nytimes, 2000
#5Most Famous Broadway Show?
Posted: 5/1/11 at 6:57pm
West Side Story
The Sound of Music
... and Spider-Man
"Jaws is the Citizen Kane of movies."
blocked: logan2, Diamonds3, Hamilton22
Updated On: 5/1/11 at 06:57 PM
blocked: logan2, Diamonds3, Hamilton22
#7Most Famous Broadway Show?
Posted: 5/1/11 at 7:18pmBased on the success of the movie, I'd go with The Sound Of Music, with Grease in the running as well.
"It does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are 20 gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket, nor breaks my leg."
-- Thomas Jefferson
broadwaybabe1234
Stand-by Joined: 5/3/09
#8Most Famous Broadway Show?
Posted: 5/1/11 at 7:40pmI think Rent and Wicked. Seems that people who don't even know Musical Theater are making references to the two of them all the time....
[believe]
nomdeplume
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/20/05
#9Most Famous Broadway Show?
Posted: 5/1/11 at 11:42pm
Annie Get Your Gun (because of Ethel Merman)
Updated On: 5/1/11 at 11:42 PM
#10Most Famous Broadway Show?
Posted: 5/1/11 at 11:53pm
THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA's title is not the most famous. The identity of that show is: the guy with the half-mask. Most people who are ignorant of theatre call it "that phantom show." So I would say that it is not the "most famous."
CATS is the most famous Broadway show. Almost *everyone* has heard of it.
If you would of asked what the most famous musical is, THE SOUND OF MUSIC would have won. But because you said "Broadway show" then the answer is CATS. More people know of THE SOUND OF MUSIC as a show rather than its Broadway incarnation.
"The Spectacle has, indeed, an emotional attraction of its own, but, of all the parts, it is the least artistic, and connected least with the art of poetry. For the power of Tragedy, we may be sure, is felt even apart from representation and actors. Besides, the production of spectacular effects depends more on the art of the stage machinist than on that of the poet."
--Aristotle
--Aristotle
Dollypop
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/15/03
#11Most Famous Broadway Show?
Posted: 5/1/11 at 11:56pmHELLO, DOLLY! because Carol Channing is the Universe.
"Long live God!" (GODSPELL)
bwaylvsong
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/28/05
#12Most Famous Broadway Show?
Posted: 5/2/11 at 12:45am
At some point, Dolly and Oklahoma probably were the most famous shows, but definitely not now.
AGYG was never the most famous show.
I'll agree with Capn about TSoM being the most famous movie musical but not show, but I'll disagree about Cats- it's been closed a good 10 years so the younger generation isn't really familiar with it, and on a similar note Wicked, which the older generation isn't really familiar with.
#13Most Famous Broadway Show?
Posted: 5/2/11 at 1:13amI would say Cats, even if it has been closed for a long time.
#14Most Famous Broadway Show?
Posted: 5/2/11 at 1:42am
I'm in my mid-twenties and I see that I have a very different perspective than most of you.
I would give extra points to Phantom because most people know it is a Broadway show but they also could describe the plot ("dude in a mask obsessed with a singer"). I'm not sure that's the case anymore for Cats or The Sound of Music.
Also, I think worldwide those two shows are not as well known as Phantom. I can't speak of the U.S. or England but I feel that in other countries most people would think on the film version of West Side Story and not on the Broadway musical.
I would add Chicago to the list. The film version was very successful and I think people do know it is a Broadway show.
#15Most Famous Broadway Show?
Posted: 5/2/11 at 3:10amI'm cheating a bit - my answer I think is a representation of the answer of a British person.
#16Most Famous Broadway Show?
Posted: 5/2/11 at 8:10pm
Oklahoma
My Fair Lady
A Chorus Line
in that order
#17Most Famous Broadway Show?
Posted: 5/2/11 at 11:19pm
One possible way to measure .... the number of recordings the show has received, which would reflect international albums:
from castalbums.org:
•My Fair Lady (135)
•Grease (127)
•Jesus Christ Superstar (112)
•The Sound Of Music (103)
•South Pacific (93)
•Hair (90)
•West Side Story (8
•Porgy and Bess (87)
•Fiddler on the Roof (74)
•The King and I (6
•Les Misérables (65)
•Evita (61)
•Oklahoma! (56)
•Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (56)
•The Rocky Horror Show (53)
•Godspell (53)
•Annie (52)
•Elisabeth (52)
•The Phantom Of The Opera (49)
2016 These Paper Bullets (1/02) Our Mother's Brief Affair (1/06), Dragon Boat Racing (1/08), Howard - reading (1/28), Shear Madness (2/10), Fun Home (2/17), Women Without Men (2/18), Trip Of Love (2/21), The First Gentleman -reading (2/22), Southern Comfort (2/23), The Robber Bridegroom (2/24), She Loves Me (3/11), Shuffle Along (4/12), Shear Madness (4/14), Dear Evan Hansen (4/16), American Psycho (4/23), Tuck Everlasting (5/10), Indian Summer (5/15), Peer Gynt (5/18), Broadway's Rising Stars (7/11), Trip of Love (7/27), CATS (7/31), The Layover (8/17), An Act Of God (8/31), The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (8/24), Heisenberg (10/12), Fiddler On The Roof (11/02), Othello (11/23), Dear Evan Hansen (11/26), Les Liaisons Dangereuses (12/21) 2017 In Transit (2/01), Groundhog Day (4/04), Ring Twice For Miranda (4/07), Church And State (4/10), The Lucky One (4/19), Ernest Shackleton Loves Me (5/16), Building The Wall (5/19), Indecent (6/01), Six Degrees of Separation (6/09), Marvin's Room (6/28), A Doll's House Pt 2 (7/25) Curvy Widow (8/01)
Updated On: 5/2/11 at 11:19 PM
#18Most Famous Broadway Show?
Posted: 5/3/11 at 8:32am
I would give extra points to Phantom because most people know it is a Broadway show but they also could describe the plot ("dude in a mask obsessed with a singer"). I'm not sure that's the case anymore for Cats or The Sound of Music.
Be fair, a lot of people who've seen Cats couldn't describe the plot of that either.
I'd say Phantom of the Opera. Do you really truly honestly think the average joe in the street knows what A Chorus Line is?
#19Most Famous Broadway Show?
Posted: 5/3/11 at 8:40am
Cats had a plot? Who knew?
If there was a successful movie of the show, a lot more people will know about it than if there was no movie or a flop movie. I also like TimesSquareRegular's cast album measurement. Another measure might be how easy it is to license the show for high school productions.
Putting all of those together, I'm going to go with Grease or Sound of Music.
degrassifan
Broadway Legend Joined: 1/23/08
#20Most Famous Broadway Show?
Posted: 5/3/11 at 9:31am
Honestly, I didn't know about A Chorus Line till I started coming to this website.
Honestly, I think it depends on who you ask and where they are from, but I would say it's The Sound of Music. Even if you've never seen the show or movie, you still know majority of the songs. I even went to Nigeria for the holidays, and that's the musical everyone loves in that country and in Africa in general.
