The longest-running Broadway musical is 'The Phantom of the Opera'

Broadway's 10 biggest flops

For every "Carousel" or "Cabaret," there's a "Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark"—a show that never found its footing, sometimes in a public and disastrous way. Here are 10 Broadway musicals the producers and stars would probably rather we forget. Some, like "The Rocky Horror Show" and "Breakfast at Tiffany's," were eventually revived and relatively well received. Others, like "Into the Light"—which involved mimes, metaphysics, and the legend of the Shroud of Turin—have rightfully stayed buried.

The best Broadway oral histories

What do you get when you combine elite performers, spectacular sets, and tons of rehearsal time? Maybe an award-winning show, but definitely drama. This list of Broadway-based oral histories spans from RENT’s groundbreaking depiction of the AIDS crisis to the lasting impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on live theater. There’s even a retelling of how TikTok helped bring a musical version of Ratatouille to the stage for a one-night-only streaming exclusive.

Hal Prince holds the record for most Tonys, with 21

As the producer and director of iconic shows like "West Side Story," "Sweeney Todd," and "Evita," Hal Prince made a huge impression on Broadway history. This episode of the "Anything Goes" podcast is part of a three-part series that highlights the songs that defined Prince's career.

100 of Broadway's best songs

From the pathos of "One Day More" from "Les Misérables," to the soaring "Defying Gravity" from "Wicked," this video showcasing 100 of Broadway's best songs will keep any musical theater lover quite busy. While the list trends toward modern pieces, there are still plenty of selections from classics and Tony Award winners like "Fiddler on the Roof" and "Miss Saigon."

The 'Wicked' movies turned an already-successful Broadway show into a behemoth

The production was already one of the most successful in Broadway history, but the release of the first movie kicked it into overdrive: It grossed 15% more in 2024, the year "Wicked: Part I" was released, than the previous year, bringing in more than $112M.

'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’ became an award-winning stage play

Premiering in 2016, the play continues the story beyond the original books and has run in London’s West End and on Broadway, winning nine Olivier Awards and six Tony Awards, including best play.

The musical 'The Wizard of Oz' debuted in 1902

Following the success of ‘The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,’ Baum adapted the novel for the stage. It premiered at Chicago’s Grand Opera House in 1902 and made it to Broadway’s Majestic Theatre in 1903. It then toured the country through 1909. It was also a musical adaptation of the story.

‘Guiding Light’ was the longest-running scripted drama in broadcast history

The show ran for 72 years, starting as a radio program in 1937, and eventually transitioning to television in 1952. Along the way, it launched several Hollywood stars, like Kevin Bacon, James Earl Jones, and Christopher Walken. CBS canceled the show in 2009.

Dickens' unfinished 'Edwin Drood' inspired a Broadway musical

Dickens died before finishing "The Mystery of Edwin Drood." That means that the mystery at the center of the story was never revealed. Rather than finishing the narrative for Dickens, a 1985 musical adaptation—written by Rupert Holmes, who also wrote "Escape (The Piña Colada Song)"—allowed audiences to vote on how the story ends. The Broadway production won five Tony Awards, including best musical.

Broadway's nickname is 'the Great White Way'

Thanks to the advent of electricity, by the middle of the 19th century, theaters in the Broadway area were illuminated by lampposts and marquees. The nickname “the Great White Way” describes how it looked at night. The term is still used today.

'Jesus Christ Superstar' was an album before it was a musical

Written in the late '60s by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, who were hot on the heels of the successful "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat," "Jesus Christ Superstar" was first recorded as an album in the style of other popular rock operas of the time, like The Who's "Tommy."

'Dead Man Walking' (2000) is the most-performed new American opera

Based on a true story, Jake Heggie's modern masterpiece tells the story of a Catholic nun who fights for the life of a man on death row. The opera has been staged over 70 times worldwide since its premiere.

Making an opera is expensive and requires many people to reach the stage

Bringing an opera to the stage is a detailed, demanding, and costly process. Following the lead ​​of Phillip Glass’s “Akhnaten” before its performance at the Metropolitan Opera House in Manhattan, this Vox video displays the rehearsals, vocal lessons, intricate costumes, and even juggling involved in putting on a show.

The band 'The Bangles' was initially named 'The Bangs'

Legal troubles forced the band to change their name. See a slew of other music facts, like how Taylor Swift's "All Too Well (Taylor's Version) is the longest song to reach number one on the US singles chart. The song is over 10 minutes long, and surpassed Don McLean's "American Pie."

Bob Dylan's 'Never Ending Tour' has racked up close to 3,000 dates

Since 1987, Bob Dylan and his band (featuring a range of rotating members) have toured venues of various sizes on what fans have come to call "The Never Ending Tour." This is thanks to the legendary artist's abundance of dates and lack of demarcation between one tour and the next.

The distributor behind 'Rocky Horror' pulled the film from its scheduled national release, believing it would be a failure, though it eventually amassed a dedicated fanbase through midnight showings, a trend that continues over 50 years later.

Since 1600, the longest stretch without an outbreak that killed 10,000 was four years

We think of pandemics as unlikely events, but disease outbreaks are surprisingly common. Over the past 400 years, the longest stretch without an outbreak that killed at least 10,000 people was just four years. The next pandemic can't be precisely known, so experts and policymakers focus on preparation.

The longest word in English is 189,819 letters long

The wildly-winding word (so long that we can't fit it here) is the proper name for titin, a protein that keeps muscles elastic.

Mariah Carey's 'All I Want for Christmas Is You' is the longest-running No. 1 single

In 2025, the 1994 track spent 20 weeks atop Billboard’s Hot 100 chart. The song has been a popular Christmas number since its release, but streaming has elevated it to a perennial chart-topper: Every time someone plays the song on a service like Spotify (something that’s likely to happen every holiday season), they’re effectively casting a vote for it to hit the chart.

The first surviving opera tells the story of Orpheus and Euridice

Jacopo Peri's “Euridice,” premiered in 1600, is the oldest surviving opera. The story is based on the Greek mythology tale about a musician named Orpheus who attempts to save his wife from the underworld by pleasing the god Hades with his musical talents.

None of Dickens' books has gone out of print

Dickens was a literary celebrity during his lifetime, but his popularity has endured over a century after his death. Publishers have kept his books in print to satisfy demand. It's paid off: "A Tale of Two Cities" alone has sold over 200 million copies.

An electric pipe organ in Germany is playing a song for 639 years

Created by composer John Cage, the Halberstadt organ first began playing the piece in September 2001, and has since made only nine chord changes. The device within a medieval church utilizes compressed air to play continuous tones. The next chord change is scheduled for August 2026.

The concept of phantom limbs, the perception that amputated limbs are still present, dates back to a French military surgeon in the 16th century.

Michael Jackson didn't perform at the Grammys at the height of his career

In 1984, the Grammys faced a problem: Michael Jackson, the world's biggest star and nominated for 12 awards, did not want to perform at the ceremony. Like many artists before and since, Jackson felt that the Grammys had not treated him fairly in the past. Interestingly enough, the Jackson-less telecast became the most-watched Grammys ceremony ever.

The world's largest restaurant is the size of 10 football fields

The Bawabet Dimashq Restaurant in Damascus, Syria, has held the Guinness World Record for largest restaurant since 2008. It can seat 6,014 guests and employs nearly 1,800 people, who serve up an eclectic menu of Middle Eastern Indian, Arab, Iranian, Syrian, and Chinese dishes.

Fenway Park is the oldest professional baseball stadium in use

The legendary park was built in 1912 and is considered hallowed ground for baseball fans, along with iconic venues like Yankee Stadium in the Bronx and Wrigley Field in Chicago.

The US Constitution is widely regarded as the longest-standing written national constitution still in force—see how it has influenced rights worldwide.

Chernobyl's remaining reactors kept running for 14 years after the explosion

Due to energy shortages in Ukraine, Chernobyl's other undamaged reactors continued operating for years. Units 1 and 2 operated until 1996 and 1991, respectively, while Reactor 3 remained online until December 15, 2000, when Ukraine finally shut down the plant.

A century of Billboard issues documenting the evolution of popular music.

For centuries, Niagara Falls has been a magnet for daredevils seeking to conquer one of nature's most powerful wonders, with its 200-foot drop and water rushing at 32 feet per second with 280 tons of force.

Double world record holder Hunter Ewen helped conquer his fear of balloons, called globophobia, by training to win Guinness World Record titles for balloon inflation.

In 1939, baseball star Lou Gehrig delivered his inspirational 'Luckiest Man' speech after retiring due to the health condition that now bears his name.

Apeirophobia is an overwhelming fear of living forever, perhaps stemming from the brain's inability to conceptualize an infinite life.

Track the location of the Voyager probes, currently between 13 and 15 billion miles away from Earth.

Dozens of S&P 500 stocks, including Coca-Cola and Walmart—known as the dividend aristocrats—have increased dividends every year for 25 years

Indefinite cloning of some endangered species may not sustain their longevity because cloning success rates decrease as genetic mutations accumulate.

The syncytiotrophoblast is the outer layer of the placenta and the largest human cell, spanning an area about twice that of a king-sized bedsheet.

For centuries, it was common to sleep in two shifts: a few hours at the beginning of the night, and a longer period beginning around midnight

American dance legend Martha Graham, sometimes called 'the Picasso of dance,' refused to perform at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and conceived the piece 'Chronicle' in response to the experience.

The most expensive ad of all time was for Chanel No. 5 perfume and cost roughly $33M to produce in 2004—about $57M in today's dollars.

The Mona Lisa's celebrity status and repeated restorations have obscured what made the painting so revolutionary for its time

Explore the history, structure, and species of Australia's Great Barrier Reef with this interactive journey narrated by Sir David Attenborough.

Explore a list of the 100 best novels of all time, compiled by some of the world's best living writers, including Salman Rushdie, Stephen King, and Jennifer Egan.

As of 2025, the most cited papers in science include a review of graphene, methods to improve image recognition, streamlining electron density calculations, and optimizing protein studies.

Domino's Pizza's 30-minute delivery guarantee was responsible for the chain's 1980s surge, but it was discontinued after the company was found liable for delivery driver accidents.

How the most famous Ebola book, The Hot Zone, which sold 3.5 million copies and was translated into 30 languages, got aspects of the disease so wrong.

In 1963, a basement renovation in Turkey revealed a passageway to a hidden, multilevel underground city that once housed as many as 20,000 people

Urushiol, the oily toxin in poison ivy, can remain allergenic on clothing for years.

Search a massive database of over 4 decades of clues from the TV quiz show 'Jeopardy!'

The Russia-Ukraine conflict is the largest ground war in Europe since World War II in casualties, forces mobilized, and displacement of civilians.