THE SHOWS

Show Boat

In the decade before "Oklahoma!" opened, not a single hit show ran over 500 performances; "Oklahoma!" ran for 2,212.

A loosely plotted scenario about the out-of-town tryout of a musical version of Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew."

After its opening in November 1950, "Guys and Dolls" became one of Broadway's most enduring successes, running 1,200 performances.

In 1949, Jerome Robbins called Leonard Bernstein about a new idea he had for a musical: a modern update of "Romeo and Juliet."

"Cabaret" made audiences an offer they might want to refuse -- an invitation to Berlin's seamy, sleazy Kit Kat Klub, on the eve of Hitler's rise to power in Weimar Germany.

By the late 1960s, it was only a matter of time before rock music -- real rock music, not the Tin Pan Alley-spoof kind -- hit Broadway.

"Company" ushered in the 1970s and a revolutionary series of collaborations between Stephen Sondheim and director/producer Harold Prince.

"A Chorus Line" had the slimmest plot a musical had seen since "On the Town," but it had a hell of a great idea.

Producer David Merrick took a huge gamble with his $3 million production based on the 1933 Warner Brothers film musical 42ND STREET.

Before "Cats" had its 1981 West End premiere, it was viewed with immense skepticism.