Broadway

Broadway, the street running the length of Manhattan which lends its name to New York's theatre district. The term “Broadway show” is used to denote a distinctively American kind of musical theatre which rose to popularity in the early 20th century.

The area from Times Square to 53rd Street has the highest concentration of theatre buildings, most of them in side streets on either side of Broadway itself. Known affectionately as the Great White Way for its brightly lit frontages, Broadway became the centre of New York's, and indeed the United States's, theatrical world from the late 19th century. The modern musical developed on its stages, from Show Boat (1927), to the jazz extravaganzas of the 1930s, and the dramatic musicals of the 1940s such as Oklahoma (1943), Carousel (1945), and South Pacific (1949).

In the 1960s and 1970s rising production and labour costs left some larger theatres dark, while smaller non-profit and experimental theatres sprang up “off Broadway” and “off off Broadway”. Today, new plays are a rarity in Broadway's “legit” houses, and British musicals, revivals, and star vehicles are the norm.