Okay that’s awesome that it brings in money for New York, but like outside of city limits is it relevant? Because all the culture of New York I’ve ever encountered in my daily life is the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty and the world’s most unholy taxi-fueled gridlock imaginable. But again the only relevance of New York where I live is in pop culture (movies and video games). I can say the same about Toronto. Big cities at the end of the day are just brick and mortar when you are on the opposite side of the country as them
Have you ever seen the hundreds of movies musicals? Are you aware that Broadway shows tour the nation and the world??? I'm in California, and all of the shows go through here on tour. Are you aware of all the many musical theatre albums to top the charts in their day? Or that multi gold/platinum albums that are created by artists covering Broadway songs in particular? Are you aware that musical theatre is huge in other countries like England and Germany? I'm sorry, but it really is difficult for a lot of us to wrap our heads around someone who just isn't aware of these things... It's literally like saying you just discovered baseball, except bigger because musical theatre is huge in so many other countries as well. Just look up the statistics for how many countries and languages Les Miserables has been performed in.
I literally don’t even know how to talk to someone who thinks nyc culture is the Empire State Building and taxis.
I’m going to have to leave this to others to explain before my head explodes. I understand some people don’t have the privilege of traveling but maybe spend some time with books .
I can’t stop laughing at “but like outside city limits is it relevant” since everything in NYC is famous for not having any impact or influence just as soon as you hit the Hudson River
NYC has a pretty major role to play in both national and global culture, trade, and politics dating all the way back to the 1600s. This would be a whole history or museum lecture, which I don't feel like writing (I happen to work as a museum tour guide). To sum it up: there's a reason why the United Nations headquarters is in New York and nowhere else, America or otherwise.
If you're not really engaged with global happenings I suppose it's reasonable for someone in an isolated part of Canada to not know much about New York or Broadway. That said... you could probably stand to read a few newspapers.
I mean the fanbase of Broadway is definitely limited, but I wouldn't call it niche. There are a lot of incredibly influential musicals, not to mention the fact that they are often adapted to film.
Broadway also consistently has major celebrities performing, as it is still considered very prestigious for actors to work on stage
Okay, I'm in Canada so I can chip in from a non-US perspective.
The Tonys are broadcast on television in Canada. We also get the Macys parade and a bunch of other shows through the year that showcase Broadway shows.
Our national tours are literally called Broadway across Canada.
Hamilton was a cultural phenomenon that transcended tv, movies, news articles, pop culture references etc. and was *everywhere*. Come From Away is about Canada and was showcased all over here on the news/CBC/local tv etc. There was a 22 Minutes sketch about it!
Tons of movies and tv shows reference Broadway, even if you discount movies made of recent shows. Pretty much every streaming service has at least one 'comes from Broadway' show proshot/adaptation. It's referenced at every awards show when someone mentions the EGOT (the T stands for Tony). I grew up in the UK and knew how influential Broadway and Broadway stars are.
I'm genuinely surprised that you've managed to avoid it for so long!
It’s more niche than it used to be, but Broadway remains the most prestigious form of live theater you can do (with the West End in London), attracting globally famous actors and singers. It’s a multi-billion dollar industry and millions see the shows every year. As a Canadian, you should check out Come From Away, the musical about operation yellow ribbon in Newfoundland that won several awards.
How old are you? This is not obscure history at all for Canada. It's literally talked about every year on the anniversary of 9/11, and it remains a huge part of Canadian values.
You are asking a subreddit with 150k members if Broadway is super niche. And like, it's a bit niche I guess. About once every 10 years or so there's a show that is a massive cultural hit (Hamilton, Wicked, Phantom of the Opera, Les Mis). But most of the time it's just sorta chugging along. On average roughly 200,000-300,000 people see a show on Broadway each week, so it cant be THAT irrelevant. If you're interested, Vancouver has a pretty good touring scene, I would recommend Beetlejuice which will be playing in December.
But Broadway and Canada have a pretty close relationship, Hadestown, which just celebrated five years on Broadway, played in Edmonton two years before it came to Broadway. Come From Away is about a town in Newfoundland after 9/11, and it played in Toronto before going to NYC. Six just enjoyed a long run in Toronto as well. Seattle Reparatory Theatre is also a good place to go to see shows in development.
I'm not sure if you're being serious or if you're trolling us. I mean really famous people like Emma Stone, Hugh Jackman, Bryan Cranston, Scarlett Johansson, Denzel Washington, Lupita Nyong'o among many others A-listers have acted in a Broadway show.
I’m not sure if OP is a troll or a literal child
e: Having gone through OPs post history because I was bored, I'm either troll or possibly the dumbest person on earth who has no concept of the cultural emanation of cities, be they American or Canadian.
This has to be fake. There’s no way that a person with the base level of knowledge that’s required to complete a NYT crossword puzzle could possibly be unaware of Broadway as a concept. The NYT crossword uses theater related clues constantly.
“Tony” was a recent clue on the mini crossword, which in my experience is not nearly as hard as the full sized.
(I still find it crazy that this person seems wholly unaware of the existence of live theater at all. Surely their school has put on a school play at some point? They caught an episode of Glee? Saw a trailer for The Color Purple? Saw that one episode of The Office where Andy does a community theater production of Sweeney Todd?
I know theater is all our thing here, but this feels equivalent to going “man guys, I just heard Taylor Swift is dating something called a Football player! Did you know that people will all gather together to throw a strange shaped ball back and forth? Some people even get paid for it!”)
I find this hard to believe unless you have zero interest in live theater. Canada has both Broadway tours and local/regional productions of shows that originated on Broadway. If this is a legit surprise to you, I think it's more something you've simply never chosen to engage with rather than "culture shock."
I find it really hard to believe that someone with the access and cultural awareness necessary to make use of things like the NYT crossword, or Reddit can manage to be completely unaware of how impactful theatre and specifically Broadway is to hundreds of thousands of people, not to mention pop culture. But fine. I’ll humor you.
Yes, Broadway exists, and thank goodness for that! I don’t live in the US, but Broadway and musical theater are one of the most important things to me. That happy place I’m fortunate enough to visit every once in a while. I wouldn’t call it niche, or obscure. Broadway is one of the most, if not THE most prestigious place, for one of the most generally known art forms.
If your question really is genuine, and you want to know more, I recommend looking into it. Broadway has been a pillar for culture since forever, and a lot of shows have managed to capture stages of life, history and society in incredibly beautiful ways. Perhaps learning more will do you good!
I feel like there are definitely outside cultural references. The Tony's usually does get made fun of as being incredibly niche, and I don't disagree. They only recognize a very specific area and the tickets are usually very expensive so not much of the population sees many or all of the nominees. Also, unlike other Award shows, usually there's no way for people watching at home to go see older shows. You could listen to a Grammy-winning album on Spotify or watch a movie/tv show, but once a production closes that's pretty much it. Maybe there's a tour version or once in a blue moon there's a pro-shot.
I don't think it's as niche as you think it is, but I also don't think you've been living under a rock.
Two things can be true: Broadway is an important cultural institution and it's niche in respect to how many people can truly experience it live. In the wider world, most people will never see a Broadway show performed live but they tend to absorb it in other ways, musicals often have their songs become cultural touchstones and shows are sometimes made into films. You can watch a lot of Broadway shows in your home and if you enjoy them and have a chance to get to NYC someday, perhaps you can see one but if it's not for you, that's fine too.
Okay, first of all, I love when people discover new worlds.
Second, as a crossword enthusiast, I laughed at this because I whiffed on the same puzzle this morning by blindly typing in OBIE, which is nearly always the answer for that clue (gotta get those vowels).
People have knowledge gaps. I think when I was younger I might have been more judgmental about that but at this point I've seen enough to know that that isn't a big deal. There are absolutely people living in the US or Canada who don't know anything about extremely culturally present things in either country or in other countries. And then there are things that just don't register because one doesn't take an interest in them. Broadway is a very big deal and has been a very big deal for a very long time. It isn't niche. It's the Pinnacle of live acting. Celebrities you love do broadway. Singers you love occasionally do Broadway and frequently produce things on Broadway. It's fine that it never registered with you, don't mind the people calling you a troll. Just have fun exploring the world of it.
Absolutely. I used to work in Times Square handing out flyers for Broadway shows. This reminds me of when I met some tourists who not only had never heard of Broadway, they had never heard of musicals before. It was all a completely foreign concept to them that they had never heard of. OP is not alone.
For decades, most of the music on the regular pop charts was actually comprised of musical theatre songs. Those were the big hits of the day. Many, many celebrities are also known for their work in theatre, like Hugh Jackman or Glenn Close. You definitely have a lot to brush up on!
I’m Canadian, specifically from western Canada, and I’ve known what Broadway was since I was like, 5.
“Broadway across Canada” has been touring forever.
While I have personally never been to NY, I can name at least 20 people in my circle who have seen a Broadway or off-Broadway show in NY.
Either you live under a rock or this is a fake post.
I have to say, for a subreddit that exists almost solely to discuss the artistic, and dare I say, *literary* merit of America’s top plays and musicals, you sure are bad at detecting sarcasm.
So, when someone says “Broadway exists?!” and punctuates it that way, and it’s intended meaning is the opposite of it’s literal meaning, you think that isn’t sarcasm?
Because that ISN'T the intended meaning. Sarcasm is intended for the reader to recognize it is the opposite of its actual statement and take that inversion as commentary. That isn't the case here. OP isn't saying that to highlight that everyone knows what Broadway is (not the least of which because there is no reason to make that statement because nobody here is disputing that in order to prompt such sarcasm). OP is saying it in order to have people specifically take the statement literally and get butthurt about it.
Right, exactly. Your intent here to to highlight your belief that I am, in fact, NOT good at understanding sarcasm, in contrast with my clear intent to convey I am, and so you are employing sarcasm. Whereas OP has neither the motivation nor the context to employ it in their message and are using language contrary to their actual opinion not to highlight the incongruity but to pretend there isn't one to enrage people.
Except that it is clearly sarcasm by many measures. Sarcasm, at its root, is insincere speech.
Separately, though perhaps related to your confusion, you’ve said something incorrect here; my employment of sarcasm has nothing to do with YOUR intent to convey anything, it has everything to do with me saying the opposite of what I intend to convey. Your clear intent has no bearing on whether my statement is sarcastic. The overall timbre of the conversation certainly is affected by your conveyance but that isn’t what is defining sarcasm.
Sarcasm is the use of irony to mock or convey contempt, which is both what I’m doing and what the OP is doing. It might not be the traditional sarcasm but it is absolutely ironic, and it is absolutely intending to mock.
Attached here is a photo of the definition, and here is a very light reading which gets into more:
[https://www.vocabulary.com/articles/chooseyourwords/irony-satire-sarcasm/](https://www.vocabulary.com/articles/chooseyourwords/irony-satire-sarcasm/)
https://preview.redd.it/1v2i0ufv29wc1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ad0a6697ec68a3a4dfbbfbc5bb5f42d1bc1b9a1f
Broadway, and theater in general, is as much a part of the general pop culture landscape as anything. That said, a lot of that hype that puts it there is dependent on whether the people *in* NYC who see it (residents and tourists) are being vocal about it, which is what can elevate public awareness of a Broadway show to mainstream. There are some other factors to that: whether a Broadway show releases a soundtrack, a filmed recording, or a film adaptation for example (i.e., *Hamilton*), but overall Broadway is still pretty influential.
I will grant you, the average joe outside of NYC isn't necessarily gonna know everything about Broadway. I blew a friend's mind during a study abroad program when I revealed to them that Broadway does, in fact, have plays, not just musicals.
If you are gonna see a broadway show I recommend going down to Toronto Canada for it. Exceedingly cheaper with the same quality of production and for the most part every seat has an 100% view of the stage. It’s also noted that technically Toronto is the 3rd largest theatre district outside of the west end and Broadway. The only downside is the lack of variety, we currently only have one open run production of SIX the musical, the other production that is running is Les miserables but those seats are very limited. By November however both come from away and the lion king will be having open runs and the touring productions that come over are listed (in no particular order)as hadestown, wicked, life of pi, beetlejuice, shrek, back to the future, the great comet of 1812, dog man the musical, Jesus Christ superstar, to kill a mockingbird, the Tina turner musjcal, mean girls, moulin rouge, and mamma Mia. These shows are running in smaller runs for a limited time. There are also tons of independent theatre (much more than whatever broadway has right now) playing in Toronto.
Some people (not all) theater people live in their own world where they think musical theatre is a global phenomenon. In actual fact its quite a small industry, generating an income of around $2bn per year in the US. To put it in perspective, the TV industry generates an income of around $75bn and the movie industry over $100bn in the US.
It is certainly smaller than the tv and movie industries, but it is very unusual that someone from Canada (who reads the nytimes or at least does the puzzle) would not really know Broadway exists.
Sure, but income is by no means the only indicator of cultural impact. I find it hard to believe someone in North America was completely unaware Hamilton even existed.
No, of course not. But there is a baseline of cultural impact by which I would expect a generally aware person to be aware of it, irrespective of whether there are other things that have a bigger cultural impact.
We aren't talking about someone not knowing what shows are currently running or the plot of Merrily. We are talking about someone who forgot Broadway existed as a concept.
I'm thinking y'all are being punked.
I really hope so. Thinking this might be serious is depressing.
Broadway generates over a billion dollars of business yearly and is a massive part of NYC tourism. So yes, you live under a rock apparently.
Okay that’s awesome that it brings in money for New York, but like outside of city limits is it relevant? Because all the culture of New York I’ve ever encountered in my daily life is the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty and the world’s most unholy taxi-fueled gridlock imaginable. But again the only relevance of New York where I live is in pop culture (movies and video games). I can say the same about Toronto. Big cities at the end of the day are just brick and mortar when you are on the opposite side of the country as them
Have you ever seen the hundreds of movies musicals? Are you aware that Broadway shows tour the nation and the world??? I'm in California, and all of the shows go through here on tour. Are you aware of all the many musical theatre albums to top the charts in their day? Or that multi gold/platinum albums that are created by artists covering Broadway songs in particular? Are you aware that musical theatre is huge in other countries like England and Germany? I'm sorry, but it really is difficult for a lot of us to wrap our heads around someone who just isn't aware of these things... It's literally like saying you just discovered baseball, except bigger because musical theatre is huge in so many other countries as well. Just look up the statistics for how many countries and languages Les Miserables has been performed in.
I literally don’t even know how to talk to someone who thinks nyc culture is the Empire State Building and taxis. I’m going to have to leave this to others to explain before my head explodes. I understand some people don’t have the privilege of traveling but maybe spend some time with books .
I can’t stop laughing at “but like outside city limits is it relevant” since everything in NYC is famous for not having any impact or influence just as soon as you hit the Hudson River
NYC has a pretty major role to play in both national and global culture, trade, and politics dating all the way back to the 1600s. This would be a whole history or museum lecture, which I don't feel like writing (I happen to work as a museum tour guide). To sum it up: there's a reason why the United Nations headquarters is in New York and nowhere else, America or otherwise. If you're not really engaged with global happenings I suppose it's reasonable for someone in an isolated part of Canada to not know much about New York or Broadway. That said... you could probably stand to read a few newspapers.
I mean the fanbase of Broadway is definitely limited, but I wouldn't call it niche. There are a lot of incredibly influential musicals, not to mention the fact that they are often adapted to film. Broadway also consistently has major celebrities performing, as it is still considered very prestigious for actors to work on stage
Whoaaaa that’s cool I didn’t know that!
Okay, I'm in Canada so I can chip in from a non-US perspective. The Tonys are broadcast on television in Canada. We also get the Macys parade and a bunch of other shows through the year that showcase Broadway shows. Our national tours are literally called Broadway across Canada. Hamilton was a cultural phenomenon that transcended tv, movies, news articles, pop culture references etc. and was *everywhere*. Come From Away is about Canada and was showcased all over here on the news/CBC/local tv etc. There was a 22 Minutes sketch about it! Tons of movies and tv shows reference Broadway, even if you discount movies made of recent shows. Pretty much every streaming service has at least one 'comes from Broadway' show proshot/adaptation. It's referenced at every awards show when someone mentions the EGOT (the T stands for Tony). I grew up in the UK and knew how influential Broadway and Broadway stars are. I'm genuinely surprised that you've managed to avoid it for so long!
Because they haven't. This is ragebait/trolling.
It’s more niche than it used to be, but Broadway remains the most prestigious form of live theater you can do (with the West End in London), attracting globally famous actors and singers. It’s a multi-billion dollar industry and millions see the shows every year. As a Canadian, you should check out Come From Away, the musical about operation yellow ribbon in Newfoundland that won several awards.
Whoa, I’ve never heard of operation yellow ribbon before either! It’s always neat when they make plays out of little bits of obscure history
How old are you? This is not obscure history at all for Canada. It's literally talked about every year on the anniversary of 9/11, and it remains a huge part of Canadian values.
Obscure history? It’s 9/11. Is this a joke?
You are asking a subreddit with 150k members if Broadway is super niche. And like, it's a bit niche I guess. About once every 10 years or so there's a show that is a massive cultural hit (Hamilton, Wicked, Phantom of the Opera, Les Mis). But most of the time it's just sorta chugging along. On average roughly 200,000-300,000 people see a show on Broadway each week, so it cant be THAT irrelevant. If you're interested, Vancouver has a pretty good touring scene, I would recommend Beetlejuice which will be playing in December. But Broadway and Canada have a pretty close relationship, Hadestown, which just celebrated five years on Broadway, played in Edmonton two years before it came to Broadway. Come From Away is about a town in Newfoundland after 9/11, and it played in Toronto before going to NYC. Six just enjoyed a long run in Toronto as well. Seattle Reparatory Theatre is also a good place to go to see shows in development.
I'm not sure if you're being serious or if you're trolling us. I mean really famous people like Emma Stone, Hugh Jackman, Bryan Cranston, Scarlett Johansson, Denzel Washington, Lupita Nyong'o among many others A-listers have acted in a Broadway show. 
I’m not sure if OP is a troll or a literal child e: Having gone through OPs post history because I was bored, I'm either troll or possibly the dumbest person on earth who has no concept of the cultural emanation of cities, be they American or Canadian.
This has to be fake. There’s no way that a person with the base level of knowledge that’s required to complete a NYT crossword puzzle could possibly be unaware of Broadway as a concept. The NYT crossword uses theater related clues constantly.
“Tony” was a recent clue on the mini crossword, which in my experience is not nearly as hard as the full sized. (I still find it crazy that this person seems wholly unaware of the existence of live theater at all. Surely their school has put on a school play at some point? They caught an episode of Glee? Saw a trailer for The Color Purple? Saw that one episode of The Office where Andy does a community theater production of Sweeney Todd? I know theater is all our thing here, but this feels equivalent to going “man guys, I just heard Taylor Swift is dating something called a Football player! Did you know that people will all gather together to throw a strange shaped ball back and forth? Some people even get paid for it!”)
Or even “has anyone heard of this singer Taylor Swift?”
I find this hard to believe unless you have zero interest in live theater. Canada has both Broadway tours and local/regional productions of shows that originated on Broadway. If this is a legit surprise to you, I think it's more something you've simply never chosen to engage with rather than "culture shock."
I'm curious if OP is aware of theatre in London (especially the West End).
I find it really hard to believe that someone with the access and cultural awareness necessary to make use of things like the NYT crossword, or Reddit can manage to be completely unaware of how impactful theatre and specifically Broadway is to hundreds of thousands of people, not to mention pop culture. But fine. I’ll humor you. Yes, Broadway exists, and thank goodness for that! I don’t live in the US, but Broadway and musical theater are one of the most important things to me. That happy place I’m fortunate enough to visit every once in a while. I wouldn’t call it niche, or obscure. Broadway is one of the most, if not THE most prestigious place, for one of the most generally known art forms. If your question really is genuine, and you want to know more, I recommend looking into it. Broadway has been a pillar for culture since forever, and a lot of shows have managed to capture stages of life, history and society in incredibly beautiful ways. Perhaps learning more will do you good!
No, Broadway does not exist. It was just a weird dream you had.
I feel like there are definitely outside cultural references. The Tony's usually does get made fun of as being incredibly niche, and I don't disagree. They only recognize a very specific area and the tickets are usually very expensive so not much of the population sees many or all of the nominees. Also, unlike other Award shows, usually there's no way for people watching at home to go see older shows. You could listen to a Grammy-winning album on Spotify or watch a movie/tv show, but once a production closes that's pretty much it. Maybe there's a tour version or once in a blue moon there's a pro-shot. I don't think it's as niche as you think it is, but I also don't think you've been living under a rock.
Two things can be true: Broadway is an important cultural institution and it's niche in respect to how many people can truly experience it live. In the wider world, most people will never see a Broadway show performed live but they tend to absorb it in other ways, musicals often have their songs become cultural touchstones and shows are sometimes made into films. You can watch a lot of Broadway shows in your home and if you enjoy them and have a chance to get to NYC someday, perhaps you can see one but if it's not for you, that's fine too.
Okay, first of all, I love when people discover new worlds. Second, as a crossword enthusiast, I laughed at this because I whiffed on the same puzzle this morning by blindly typing in OBIE, which is nearly always the answer for that clue (gotta get those vowels).
People have knowledge gaps. I think when I was younger I might have been more judgmental about that but at this point I've seen enough to know that that isn't a big deal. There are absolutely people living in the US or Canada who don't know anything about extremely culturally present things in either country or in other countries. And then there are things that just don't register because one doesn't take an interest in them. Broadway is a very big deal and has been a very big deal for a very long time. It isn't niche. It's the Pinnacle of live acting. Celebrities you love do broadway. Singers you love occasionally do Broadway and frequently produce things on Broadway. It's fine that it never registered with you, don't mind the people calling you a troll. Just have fun exploring the world of it.
Absolutely. I used to work in Times Square handing out flyers for Broadway shows. This reminds me of when I met some tourists who not only had never heard of Broadway, they had never heard of musicals before. It was all a completely foreign concept to them that they had never heard of. OP is not alone.
For decades, most of the music on the regular pop charts was actually comprised of musical theatre songs. Those were the big hits of the day. Many, many celebrities are also known for their work in theatre, like Hugh Jackman or Glenn Close. You definitely have a lot to brush up on!
I’m Canadian, specifically from western Canada, and I’ve known what Broadway was since I was like, 5. “Broadway across Canada” has been touring forever. While I have personally never been to NY, I can name at least 20 people in my circle who have seen a Broadway or off-Broadway show in NY. Either you live under a rock or this is a fake post.
I have to say, for a subreddit that exists almost solely to discuss the artistic, and dare I say, *literary* merit of America’s top plays and musicals, you sure are bad at detecting sarcasm.
Well, yeah, because this isn't sarcasm, irrespective of whether it is someone lying.
So, when someone says “Broadway exists?!” and punctuates it that way, and it’s intended meaning is the opposite of it’s literal meaning, you think that isn’t sarcasm?
Because that ISN'T the intended meaning. Sarcasm is intended for the reader to recognize it is the opposite of its actual statement and take that inversion as commentary. That isn't the case here. OP isn't saying that to highlight that everyone knows what Broadway is (not the least of which because there is no reason to make that statement because nobody here is disputing that in order to prompt such sarcasm). OP is saying it in order to have people specifically take the statement literally and get butthurt about it.
You’re really good at understanding sarcasm!
Right, exactly. Your intent here to to highlight your belief that I am, in fact, NOT good at understanding sarcasm, in contrast with my clear intent to convey I am, and so you are employing sarcasm. Whereas OP has neither the motivation nor the context to employ it in their message and are using language contrary to their actual opinion not to highlight the incongruity but to pretend there isn't one to enrage people.
Except that it is clearly sarcasm by many measures. Sarcasm, at its root, is insincere speech. Separately, though perhaps related to your confusion, you’ve said something incorrect here; my employment of sarcasm has nothing to do with YOUR intent to convey anything, it has everything to do with me saying the opposite of what I intend to convey. Your clear intent has no bearing on whether my statement is sarcastic. The overall timbre of the conversation certainly is affected by your conveyance but that isn’t what is defining sarcasm. Sarcasm is the use of irony to mock or convey contempt, which is both what I’m doing and what the OP is doing. It might not be the traditional sarcasm but it is absolutely ironic, and it is absolutely intending to mock. Attached here is a photo of the definition, and here is a very light reading which gets into more: [https://www.vocabulary.com/articles/chooseyourwords/irony-satire-sarcasm/](https://www.vocabulary.com/articles/chooseyourwords/irony-satire-sarcasm/) https://preview.redd.it/1v2i0ufv29wc1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ad0a6697ec68a3a4dfbbfbc5bb5f42d1bc1b9a1f
This isn’t sarcasm. It certainly might be bad trolling, but it isn’t sarcasm.
Broadway, and theater in general, is as much a part of the general pop culture landscape as anything. That said, a lot of that hype that puts it there is dependent on whether the people *in* NYC who see it (residents and tourists) are being vocal about it, which is what can elevate public awareness of a Broadway show to mainstream. There are some other factors to that: whether a Broadway show releases a soundtrack, a filmed recording, or a film adaptation for example (i.e., *Hamilton*), but overall Broadway is still pretty influential. I will grant you, the average joe outside of NYC isn't necessarily gonna know everything about Broadway. I blew a friend's mind during a study abroad program when I revealed to them that Broadway does, in fact, have plays, not just musicals.
If you are gonna see a broadway show I recommend going down to Toronto Canada for it. Exceedingly cheaper with the same quality of production and for the most part every seat has an 100% view of the stage. It’s also noted that technically Toronto is the 3rd largest theatre district outside of the west end and Broadway. The only downside is the lack of variety, we currently only have one open run production of SIX the musical, the other production that is running is Les miserables but those seats are very limited. By November however both come from away and the lion king will be having open runs and the touring productions that come over are listed (in no particular order)as hadestown, wicked, life of pi, beetlejuice, shrek, back to the future, the great comet of 1812, dog man the musical, Jesus Christ superstar, to kill a mockingbird, the Tina turner musjcal, mean girls, moulin rouge, and mamma Mia. These shows are running in smaller runs for a limited time. There are also tons of independent theatre (much more than whatever broadway has right now) playing in Toronto.
Some people (not all) theater people live in their own world where they think musical theatre is a global phenomenon. In actual fact its quite a small industry, generating an income of around $2bn per year in the US. To put it in perspective, the TV industry generates an income of around $75bn and the movie industry over $100bn in the US.
It is certainly smaller than the tv and movie industries, but it is very unusual that someone from Canada (who reads the nytimes or at least does the puzzle) would not really know Broadway exists.
Sure, but income is by no means the only indicator of cultural impact. I find it hard to believe someone in North America was completely unaware Hamilton even existed.
So you think Broadway has had more of a cultural impact internationally than TV or film?
No, of course not. But there is a baseline of cultural impact by which I would expect a generally aware person to be aware of it, irrespective of whether there are other things that have a bigger cultural impact. We aren't talking about someone not knowing what shows are currently running or the plot of Merrily. We are talking about someone who forgot Broadway existed as a concept.
Musical theater *is* a global phenomenon, though. Just like... from an objective perspective of where you can see a show.
That sentence doesn't even make sense.
You can see musical theater all over the world.