Apr 11: Record Breakers

The Cats tour coming to town is still advertising itself as "the longest-running musical." That is wrong on a few different counts. It was the longest-running show on Broadway and the West End until a little more than a year ago. And the longest-running musical period was Off-Broadway. So what ARE the record-breakers of the past?

This was one of those shows that was just hard to get off the ground. Information has been muddled through well-meaning but mistaken promotional people for so long that the only way to confirm the early record-holders was comparing dates and performance numbers on Internet Broadway Database (ibdb.com). The results were a little surprising. Each of these shows was knocked off by the next show, EXCEPT for the ones marked Off Broadway and Les Miz -- that's London's top spot.

Alice Blue Gown (Irene) - Edith Day, Smithsonian American Musical Theater V1
Oklahoma - Oklahoma OBC
Wouldn't It Be Loverly - Julie Andrews, My Fair Lady
Pirate Jenny - Lotte Lenya, Threepenny Opera (Off Broadway)
I Put My Hand In - Carol Channing, Hello, Dolly!
Matchmaker - Fiddler On The Roof
Those Magic Changes - Grease
Hello 12 Hello 13 Hello Love (radio edit) - A Chorus Line
Stop Cats! A Chorus Cat - Forbidden Broadway Strikes Back (longest revue)
Gus: The Theatre Cat - Cats (Broadway)
The Music of the Night - Michael Crawford, The Phantom of the Opera
Do You Hear The People Sing? - Les Miserables Original London Cast
Much More - Rita Gardner, The Fantasticks [1960 Original Off-Broadway Cast]

I couldn't fit in Chicago, the longest-running revival.

I am VERY sorry about the technical difficulties today. After realizing I only had the GERMAN version of Pirate Jenny, so I purchased Lotte Lenya's English performance off of one of those on-line music services. That was a mistake -- the skipping and were terrible. And to think I paid almost a buck for that.... I also had popping and digital skips while recording the comments, and in re-recording two of the personal commentaries messed up.... Hope you enjoyed what you were able to hear anyway.

By the way, I'm also on a personal hunt for the CD of Threepenny. I had a tape of the album back in '93 when I was Lucy Brown, and I really want to share more of those songs with you.