Recent Revivals
“Hey folks, ain’t it pretty? Look who’s back in New York City!”
-Alex Brightman, “The Whole Being Dead Thing” from Beetlejuice the Musical
The cast of the recent Cats revival. Courtesy of Matthew Murphy.
Broadway is always
changing.
Sometimes, a show regains interest in the theatrical public. These three shows have all been resurrected after ending performances before.
Ellie Roddy and Max Cervantes as Roxie Hart and Billy Flynn respectively, during “We Both Reached For The Gun”. Photo courtesy of Jeremy Daniel.
Its original run in 1975 didn’t garner much attention; the people of New York didn’t find the concept appealing. However, after the O. J. Simpson murder trial in 1994 and 1995, the American people were enamored with the idea of murderers turning into celebrities with publicity, and Chicago returned to the limelight with renewed vigor. This time, it was a huge success. Reaching over 10,000 revival performances, it has become the longest running revival in Broadway history, well on its way to eclipsing even Phantom of the Opera. It is still showing performances at the Ambassador Theatre, as it has been since 2003.
Those aren’t the only accolades Chicago has received. In 1997, the show received eight nominations at the 51st Annual Tony Awards, winning six including Best Revival of a Musical. Similarly it received eight nominations at the 1997 Drama Desk Awards and won six, including Outstanding Revival of a Musical.
Chicago
Music by John Kander
Lyrics by Fred Ebb
Book by Fred Ebb and Bob Fosse
Pop. Six. Squish. Uh-uh. Cicero. Lipschitz. You’ve heard of them before in the “Cell Block Tango”, arguably one of the most well-known songs in musical theatre, from the musical Chicago, written by John Kander, Fred Ebb, and Bob Fosse. Yes, that Bob Fosse, the most influential jazz dance figure of the twentieth century. Based on the 1926 play of the same name by Maurice Dallas Watkins, Chicago follows the murderer-turned-celebrity Roxie Hart as she vies for front page headlines against Velma Kelly, another murderess, when they’re paired with the same lawyer, the sinful Billy Flynn.
“We Both Reached For The Gun” as depicted in the Oscar-winning movie adaptation of Chicago (2002).
Cats
Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber
Lyrics by T. S. Eliot, Trevor Nunn, and Richard Stilgoe
This entry may be a little bit divisive, but there’s no denying its success. Cats is a musical written by Andrew Lloyd Webber with lyrics from T. S. Eliot, Trevor Nunn, and Richard Stilgoe, based on the 1939 poetry collection Old Possum’s Book for Practical Cats, written by T. S. Eliot. Cats tells the story of, well, cats. Specifically, the tribe of the Jellicle Cats, which include names like Munkustrap, Rum Tum Tugger, and the show’s most iconic character, Grizabella, as they meet for the Jellicle Ball to see which of them while go to the Heaviside Layer to be reborn into new Jellicle Cats.
A portion of “The Naming of Cats” from Old Possum’s Book for Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot. Photo courtesy of andrewlloydwebber.com.
Elaine Page as Grizabella performing “Memory” in the original 1981 West End production of Cats.
Lloyd Webber first got the idea to write Cats when he returned to Eliot’s collection, which his mother had read to him as a young boy. This was not the first time Lloyd Webber put music to Eliot’s lyrics, as he had done so several times in the past as songwriting exercises. At the 1980 summer Sydmonton Festival, where Practical Cats — the show’s first working title — was being shown, Eliot’s widow Valerie attended, bringing along several of Eliot’s unfinished and unpublished poems like one such “Grizabella the Glamour Cat”. This was the catalyst that made the idea of turning Practical Cats into a full musical a potential reality for Lloyd Webber.
On October 7, 1982, Cats premiered at the Winter Garden Theatre with over six million dollars in ticket presales, a record-shattering amount. It was regarded very highly, running for 7,485 performances before closing on September 10, 2000. Recently, encouraged by the revival at London’s West End, Cats returned to Broadway for a year and a half from July 31, 2016 to December 30, 2017, playing 593 performances in the Niel Simon Theatre. Grossing over $450 million since its debut, Cats is considered one of the most successful musicals on Broadway.
Alan Cumming reprising his role as the Master of Ceremonies in Cabaret during the 1998 Tony Awards.
The show opens with a simple melody, with Emcee introducing us to the Kit Kat Klub in Berlin. It’s 1929, during the later years of the Jazz Age, and things are getting bad in Weimar Germany. But as Emcee says, “Leave your troubles outside! So, life is disappointing? Forget it. We have no troubles here. Here, life is beautiful! The girls are beautiful! Even the orchestra is beautiful!” Emcee constantly breaks the fourth wall, speaking to his audience like a good Master of Ceremonies should. This helps draw the audience in through the entire show, all the way through to the very bitter end.
Cabaret has had several revivals over the years. The latest revival opened on 21 April 2024 and ran for a year and a half at the August Wilson Theatre until 21 September 2025, garnering 592 performances and bringing the total number of Cabaret performances to 4,784. The show has grossed over a quarter of a billion dollars and has gone on to have multiple performances on the West End and in international productions.
Cabaret
Music by John Kander
Lyrics by Fred Ebb
Book by Joe Masteroff
Set in Berlin during the rise of Hitler, Cabaret follows the story of an American reporter named Clifford Bradshaw and his escapades with English cabaret dancer Sally Bowles, overseen by an esoteric Master of Ceremonies — Emcee for short — as the city of Berlin is taken over by Nazis. Based on the 1959 play I Am a Camera by John Van Druten (which itself was based on the 1939 book Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood), Cabaret initially took the stage at the Broadhurst Theatre on November 20, 1966. Kander and Ebb’s first big Broadway hit, Cabaret set the stage for future shows by the duo, including Chicago.
The Wilkommen motif that underscores Emcee when he’s addressing the audience.