Broadway

Broadway is a street in New York City running the length of the borough of Manhattan. A few theaters were built along Broadway around the turn of the nineteenth century; more soon followed. In the twentieth century, the Broadway district became the center of mainstream American theater and the home of some of the best-known musical and dramatic productions in the English-speaking world. In 2007, thirty-nine professional theaters made up the Broadway theater district.

The early theaters

The earliest theater in the Broadway district, the elegant Park Theater, opened in 1798. By 1820, a few more were built in the area, notably the

3,000-seat Bowery Theater and Chatham Gardens. The Park brought in English actors to perform classic drama such as the plays of William Shakespeare (1564–1616). The other theaters catered to more popular tastes. With the rise of industrialism and immigration in the mid-1800s, increasing numbers of the working class attended these urban theaters.

Melodrama, blackface minstrelsy, and vaudeville

The most popular form of play in the early nineteenth century was the melodrama, with its exaggerated moral conflicts, stock characters (types used over and over again), and predictable format. Some of the better melodramas drew a mix of sophisticated and uneducated audiences. One example was the six-act adaptation of Harriet Beecher Stowe's 1852 novel Uncle Tom's Cabin by George L. Aiken (1830–1876). The play had the basic elements of the melodrama, with its arch villain, suffering innocents, thrilling spectacles, comic relief, and poetic justice. It also dealt seriously with slavery , the most heated social issue of its time.

Blackface minstrelsy, another popular form of entertainment, was featured in Broadway theaters beginning in the late 1820s. It usually consisted of several white male performers imitating in an exaggerated style the songs, dances, and speech patterns of southern blacks. Performers blackened their faces with burnt cork, dressed in rags, and played banjos, fiddles, and tambourines.

Vaudeville shows were popular variety acts featuring comedians, jugglers, singers, and dancers. In its original form, vaudeville was rowdy and often crude, with audience participation sometimes spiraling out of control. By the end of the nineteenth century, theater owners began to produce “refined vaudeville” acts for family audiences. The 3,200-seat Niblo's Gardens was one of the first Broadway theaters for the new vaudeville.

In 1866, The Black Crook: An Original Magical and Spectacular Drama in Four Acts opened at Niblo's Garden. This is considered the first American “book musical”—that is, a musical with a plot and characters. The rather high-brow cultural event at a low-brow vaudeville house was the most commercially successful Broadway play up to that time.

The Syndicate

By 1900, theatrical touring troupes based in New York took their long-running Broadway shows on the road, performing them in theaters throughout the country. The system of booking plays nationwide was complicated, and six New York theater owners took advantage of the turmoil. Emulating the robber barons of the steel, railroad, and oil industries (business leaders whose unethical practices often involved driving competitors out of business), these theater owners formed the Theatrical Syndicate in 1896. They brought order to theater bookings, but took nearly complete control over American theater in the process.

By 1900, the Syndicate controlled more than five thousand U.S. theaters, including virtually every first-class stage. To maximize its profits, the Syndicate began to cut costs, undermining the quality of its shows. It soon faced competition from ambitious new rivals such as the Shubert brothers (Lee, Sam, and Jacob), who in 1905 began building their own chain of theaters. They managed to break the Syndicate's monopoly on the American theater in 1915, but like the Syndicate, the Shuberts exerted tight control over their extensive theatrical empire.

Because of the Syndicate's emphasis on profits in the early years of the century, Broadway theater became, and has remained, an extremely conservative commercial enterprise. It produces expensive shows designed to appeal to large audiences and make a large return on investors’ money. Broadway is not known for experimenting with new art forms.

The boom period

Around the turn of the twentieth century, there were sixteen theaters on Broadway, with others nearby and many new theaters under construction. The theater district extended more than a mile, from Thirteenth Street to Times Square (formerly Longacre Square). Streetlights illuminated the thriving area, which became known as the Great White Way. Broadway theaters offered about seventy plays in the 1900–1901 season, and that number increased each year.

As the Roaring Twenties began, Broadway was in its heyday. In 1917, 126 plays were produced; that number soared to 264 in 1928. The Broadway district was home to seventy to eighty theaters. Melodrama and vaudeville gave way to many new forms, ranging from serious drama to musical comedy to light entertainment.

Development of musical theater

In 1900, vaudeville performer George M. Cohan (1878–1942) began to focus his ambitions as a playwright, songwriter, and performer on the Broadway theater. In 1904, Cohan created the patriotic musical comedy Little Johnny Jones, which featured the hit songs “Give My Regards to Broadway” and “Yankee Doodle Boy.” Other Cohan musical comedies included such popular songs as “You're a Grand Old Flag” and the popular World War I –themed “Over There.” Audiences craved his simple patriotic messages and upbeat songs. The title of one of Cohan's 1901 shows, The Man Who Owns Broadway, soon became his own nickname.

By the 1910s, musical forces such as Irving Berlin (1888–1989) and George (1898–1937) and Ira Gershwin (1896–1983) were putting their song-writing talents to work to create generally mediocre musical plays featuring outstanding songs. These artists first wrote the songs and then developed a thin plot to tie them together in a show. The Gershwin production Lady Be Good in 1924 introduced dancing star Fred Astaire (1899–1987). Singer Al Jolson (1886–1950) made his debut (first appearance as a performer) at the Winter Garden Theatre in 1911, winning the audience over with a brilliant performance.

In 1907, Florenz Ziegfeld (1867–1932) presented the Follies of 1907, the first of his famous series of revues featuring beautiful showgirls in lavish costumes. The Ziegfeld Follies became the longest-lived series of musical revues in show-business history. As the Follies progressed, the acts became more elaborate. Rope-twirling humorist Will Rogers (1879–1935) made his Follies debut in 1916, and singer-comedian Eddie Cantor (1892–1964) in 1917. Together with Fanny Brice (1891–1951) and W. C. Fields (1880–1946), these comics added a crucial dimension to the beautiful-girls show.

During the 1910s and 1920s, Ziegfeld mounted more than three dozen Broadway shows in addition to his Follies, most of them musical comedies. Perhaps his greatest triumph was the 1927 production of Show Boat, by Jerome Kern (1885–1945) and Oscar Hammerstein II (1895–1960). The musical featured acclaimed songs such as “Ol’ Man River” and “Can't Help Lovin’ Dat Man.” Show Boat is considered the forerunner of the modern American musical drama.

The Depression and World War II

The Roaring Twenties were followed by the stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression (1929–41), a time of economic troubles around the world. Many Broadway theaters went out of business; others greatly reduced their productions. Many former theaters became movie houses, as movies took over a significant portion of theater audiences. Despite the obstacles, Broadway produced some of its greatest musicals in the 1930s. It was the prime era for the Gershwin brothers’ work, and for musicals from new composers such as Cole Porter (1891–1964).

The turning point for the modern Broadway musical occurred during World War II (1939–45) with the Richard Rodgers (1902–1979) and Oscar Hammerstein musical play Oklahoma! Taking up where Show Boat had left off, Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote the play for this musical first and then made everything in it, including the songs, work to develop the plot, characters, and drama. Oklahoma! was an instant success, setting a record for its Broadway run and forever changing the nature of the American musical. The 1950s saw many more musical dramas, including My Fair Lady (1956), which set the record for the longest run of any theater production in history; West Side Story (1957); and Rodgers and Hammerstein's final musical, The Sound of Music (1959).

Attendance at musicals dropped during the late 1960s and 1970s. As tastes changed with the introduction of rock music, some musicals, such as Hair and Grease, attempted to adapt to the times. Broadway still had its share of traditional musicals, and some continued to be smash hits. But the decrease in productions and audiences continued into the 2000s.

Non-musical Broadway plays

The 1920s brought a boom in serious American drama as well as musical productions. In 1920, Beyond the Horizon, the first full-length play by Eugene O’Neill (1888–1953), debuted on Broadway and won that year's Pulitzer Prize. O’Neill probed the dark side of humanity and bucked the trend towards lighter fare. His plays were critical successes, and many cultural observers felt he raised the artistic standards on Broadway.

Continuing the development of realism were the two major play-wrights of the 1940s and 1950s, Arthur Miller (1915–2005) and Tennessee Williams (1911–1983). Miller's first major triumph, Death of a Salesman, premiered on Broadway in 1949. It was America's first tragedy of a common man, Willy Loman. Williams's The Glass Menagerie premiered on Broadway in 1945, using Williams's own troubled family relations as subject matter. A Streetcar Named Desire, which opened on Broadway in 1947, was directed by Elia Kazan (1909–2003) and starred Marlon Brando (1924–2004).

Most Broadway plays of the 1950s were written and directed by white men, but in 1959 A Raisin in the Sun, a play by Lorraine Hansberry (1930–1965) about an African American family confronting racism, debuted to a standing ovation. It was the first play by a black woman to be produced on Broadway. Gradually, Broadway stages began to reflect the multicultural society. By the 1980s, many plays written by and about minorities and women were commercial and critical successes.

Non-musical Broadway plays were not universally serious. Neil Simon (1927–) became Broadway's most reliable and commercially successful playwright beginning in the 1960s by dedicating himself to light entertainment. Simon's well-made Broadway comedies include The Odd Couple (1965) and The Sunshine Boys (1972).

Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway

In the 1950s, the enormous expense of producing theater on Broadway led to the development of smaller theaters outside Times Square, collectively referred to as Off-Broadway. Off-Broadway provided a challenge to Broadway, opening the door for alternative theater. The 1960s saw the rise of Off-Off-Broadway, alternative theatrical performances staged in small coffeehouses off Broadway's main theater row. These coffeehouses boomed, allowing experimentation in drama to flourish. By 1966, the number of Off-Off-Broadway productions was twice that of Broadway and Off-Broadway combined.

Broadway today

Broadway celebrates its own players every year with the Antoinette Perry Awards, better known as the Tony Awards, established in 1947. These awards are only for productions that open in the major Broadway theaters.

In 2007, Broadway had only about half the number of theaters it had in the 1920s. It has never been able to regain the popularity it enjoyed during the 1920s. Still, some of the best writers, directors, performers, costume and set designers, composers, and many other theater professionals continue to bring their talents to this center of U.S. theater. The thirty-nine official Broadway theaters remain a popular tourist attraction in New York City and continue to draw crowds. Total Broadway attendance in 2005 was just under twelve million.