23 Reviews that ran longer than their original productions

Updated 12 August 2020

If a musical or play returns to Broadway in a revival, it almost always stays for a shorter period than the original run. However, these 23 shows all had revival that lasted longer than their original productions.

Why? If a show opened before 1940, it could be because changes in tourism and the general company of Broadway made much longer today than at the beginning of the 20th century. Others may have clicked with audiences in a way that the original production could not reach.

Here, Playbill looks at the 23 Broadway revivals on record that survived their originals in rising order by the difference in number of performances – of the revivals that lasted only a few performances as their originals to the revivals that exceeded their sources through the thousands. Plus, look at why The top five on this list could reach their status.

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23 Reviews that ran longer than their original productions

23. West Side Story
Summary: West Side Story Transcoses Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet After the gang-focused streets of the 1950s Manhattan, dominated by the Sharks and the Jets. Two teenagers of the bitter-moral gangs meet and fall in love with a fateful gym dance.
Original production (1957): 732 performances
2009 revival: 748 performances
Difference: 16 performances

22. She loves me
Synopsis: A Store clerk and a sales girl in a Hungarian perfumery cannot tolerate each other, but are unaware that they are doing an anonymous romantic correspondence.
Original production (1963): 301 performances
1993 Revival: 354 performances
Difference: 53 performances

21. Assertive
Synopsis: Zorba the Greek teaches his life -destroying philosophy to a more capable young student who inherited a mine in Crete. Zorba retains his joy in life despite several tragedies, in John Kander, Fred Ebb and Joseph Stein’s musical adaptation of the novel of Nikos Kazantzakis Zorba the Greek and his film from 1964.
Original production (1968): 305 performances
1983 Revival: 362 performances
Difference: 57 pe rformances

20. The male animal
Summary: A young teacher arouses controversy when he plans to read the writings of a young intellectual who openly called the Board of Trustees Fascists for his class. In the midst of accusations of a communist, the teacher remains steadfast about his freedom of speech and the importance of teaching his students to think.
Original production (1940): 243 performances
1952 Revival: 317 performances
Refer il: 74 performances

19. The animal
Synopsis: A vulgar street artist and a high -people playwright compete for favors in the Royal Court in this satire in the 17th century.
Original production (1991): 25 performances
2010 revival: 101 performances
Difference: 76 performances

18. Pal Joey
Synopsis: Joey, a second-class chicago-center, twice a married society and a naive chorus. Based on the novel of John O’hara and is recorded by Rodgers & Hart.
Original production (1940): 374 performances
1952 Revival: 540 performances
Difference: 166 performances

17. Pgy and Bess
Synopsis: George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin and Dubose Heyward’s operative adjustment of Heyward’s Play Porgie Follow the lives of the residents of Catfish Row, an African American part of Charleston, South Carolina, including crippled Porgy, his beloved Bess, who is under the danger of the dangerous crown, and the nervous drug dealer ‘Life.
Original production (1935): 124 performances
1942 Revival: 286 performances
1953 Revival: 305 performances
2012 Revival: 293 performances
Difference: 162/181/169 performances

16. On your toes
Synopsis: A former Vaudevillian, who now works as a music professor, convinces the Russian ballet director to set up his student’s jazzballet, and eventually starring the ballet and raising the jealousy of the prime ballerina’s boyfriend – as well as the disappointment of the female music student who loves him.
Original production (1936): 315 performances
1983 Revival: 505 performances
Difference: 190 performances

15. The red mill
Synopsis: A few US tourists who get stuck in a Dutch city without money must work at a local inn to pay off their hotel account, and finally play matchmaker for the inn’s daughter in Victor Herbert, Henry Blossom and Forman Brown’s operetta.
Original production (1906): 274 performances
[1945Revival: 531 performances
Difference: 257 performances

14. A moon for the wrong
Summary: In 1923, in a dilapidated Connecticut farmhouse, this American classic centers on Josie, a tower -iced woman with a quick tongue and a ruined reputation; Her pleasant father, Phil Hogan; and Jim Tyrone, Hogan’s landlord and drinking companion, a cynical alcoholic who haunts his mother’s death.
Original production (1957): 68 performances
1973 Revival: 313 performances
Difference: 245 performances

13. Threepenny opera
Synopsis: The forbidden Macheath is betrayed repeatedly and sent in prison, just to receive a last minute postponement of Queen Victoria, in Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht’s dark satirical adjustment from John Gay. The beggar’s opera.
Original production (1933): 12 performances
1954 Revival: 96 performances
1966 Revival: 13 performances
1976 Revival: 307 performances
1989 revival: 65 performances
2006 revival: 77 performances
Difference: 84/1/295/53/65 performances

12. Show boot
Synopsis: Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II’s groundbreaking musical version of Edna Ferber novel investigates the lives of Cap’n Andy and his group Traveling Show Boat artists, including his naive daughter Magnolia, her gambling Gaylord Ravenal, the tragic mixed Renras of July, and Black Stefore Joe. of the construction of the construction of the construction of the construction of the construction of the construction of the construction of the construction of the construction of the construction of the construction of the construction of construction of the construction of the construction of the construction of the construction of the construction of the construction of the construction of July. Travel on.
Original production (1927): 572 performances
1994 Revival: 947 performances
Difference: 375 performances

11. The Rocky Horror Show
Synopsis: Innocent Brad and Janet find themselves on a dark and stormy night at a mysterious old castle, where they transvestite Dr. Frank N Furter, his ‘perfect’ creation pride, and a variety of other crazy creatures encountered.
Original production (1975): 45 performances
2000 revival: 437 performances
Difference: 392 performances

10. An inspector calls
Synopsis: An inspector visits an engagement party in a middle -class house in the English countryside to question the guests about the recent suicide of a young woman, in the thriller of JB Priestly.
Original production (1947): 95 performances
1994 Revival: 454 performances
Difference: 359 performances

9. Anything is going
Synopsis: An Evangelist-Displed Nightclub singer, a lovers of the lovers who have a lovely debutants, the British lord folders of the debutants, and a gangster disguise as a minister, on a luxury speed to sing, dance and romance.
Original production (1934): 420 performances
1987 Revival: 784 performances
2011 revival: 521 performances
Difference: 364/101 performances

8. Peter pan
Synopsis: The boy who would not grow up visits the darling children and takes them on a magical adventure to never go into this beloved musical version of the classic JM Barrie play.
Original production (1954): 152 performances
1979 Revival: 554 performances
Difference: 402 performances

7. Morning at seven
Summary: Four sisters who live in a suburb in the midwest close to each other find that their existence is disrupted if one’s son wants to leave the house to marry and another tells her husband that she wants to live by the sister who shares a home with them.
Original production (1939): 44 performances
1980 Revival: 564 performances
Difference: 520 performances

6. No, no, nanette
Synopsis: A Bible seller, his wife, their attorney friend and his wife, and the young ward of the salesman, Nanette, become in various romantic entanglations and misunderstandings in the 1920s Atlantic City.
Original production (1925): 321 performances
1971 Revival: 861 performances
Difference: 540 performances

The top five

5. Dracula
Synopsis: Bram Stoker’s classic novel about a charming transylvanic score that is really a vampire to seduce women for their blood is adapted to the stage by Hamilton Deane and John L. Balderston.
Original production (1927): 261 performances
1977 Revival: 925 performances
Difference: 664 performances

A very important thing happened between 1927 and 1977 in terms of DraculaThe success of Broadway: John L. Balderston and Hamilton Deane’s stage adjustment of the Bram stroker novel was adapted in a film in 1931, and it became a classic of the theater. Thanks to the growing cultural affection for the property and a first -class production with Frank Langella, this revival could last more than two years.

4. Candid
Summary: In this musical adaptation of the Satirical Novel of Voltaire, the naive Candide is separated from his beloved Cunegonde and travel all over the world to find her, and retains his teacher Pangloss’s belief that “it is the best of all worlds” in the face of ever increasing disasters.
Original production (1956): 73 performances
1974 Revival: 740 performances
Difference: 667 performances

Candid Was not a hit in the original production, but the cast became a favorite among theater fans and the Overture quickly became a standard choice for orchestras around the world. Due to the popularity of the score, Harold Prince decided to radically review Candid For its 1974 production, it gives a completely new book, some new songs and a dramatic shorter time (90 minutes without interruption). This new version was finally a hit with audiences and led to a rebirth of the show, which is still being produced today.

3. Cabaret
Synopsis: Cabaret singer Sally Bowles performs at the Decadent Kit Kat Club, while the Nazi party quietly seizes Berlin in the 1930s.
Original production (1966): 1,165 performances
1998 Revival: 2,377 performances
Difference: 1,212 performances

As Oh! Calcutta!, Cabaret Enjoyed an original run from the hit, which makes the increasing success of his revival in 1998 all the more impressive. For this production, director Sam Mendes had a darker look at the Weimar-era Germany than the original production had, and could include elements of Christopher Isherwood’s Goodbye from Berlin—On Cabaret is based – is slightly taboo for 1966 audiences, such as Cliff’s bisexuality. Thanks also to a series of star replacements in both starring, this revival has risen past the original’s already successful run.

2. Oh! Calcutta!
Synopsis: Kenneth Tynan devised this musical revue, to which Samuel Beckett, John Lennon, Sam Shepard and other sketches and songs of a fickle erotic nature contributed. The cast acts in the naked.
Original production (1969): 1,314 performances
1976 Revival: 5.959 performances
Difference: 4.645 performances

Oh! Calcutta! is perhaps one of the least famous yet the longest running musicals in Broadway history; It currently keeps the record as the seventh longest running production. It was a musical revue of comic erotic scenes and sketches, and it was the most famous (perhaps notorious, perhaps) for the sufficient voltage. It remains the longest running revue in the history of Broadway, and the second longest revival.

1. Chicago
Summary: Set in the midst of the decadzle decadence of the 1920s, Chicago is the story of Roxie Hart, a housewife and a nightclub dancer who kills her on the side of the lover after threatening to walk out on her. Desperate to avoid conviction, she doubles the public, the media and her rival, Velma Kelly, by hiring Chicago’s cunning criminal lawyer to convert her malicious crime into a barrage of sensational headlines, which is just as easily from today’s pamphlet can be torn.
Original production (1975): 936 performances
1996 Revival: 9.692 Performances (from March 15, 2020)
Difference: 8,756 performances (and count)

The original production of Chicago was no failure but it was famously opened within months of A choir lineone of the biggest Broadway hits ever. When Encores! The show decided to produce a concert version of the work in 1996. Overwhelmingly positive response led to that Chicago On Broadway. It is without a doubt the most dramatic example of a revival whose run has darkened that of the original production.