Dance in front of the mirrors from \u201cA Chorus Line.\u201d Play on the flower-cover swing from \u201cHair.\u201d Sit at a drugstore lunch counter very much like the one in \u201cWest Side Story.\u201d If you always fantasized about being onstage, the Museum of Broadway might be as close as you\u2019ll ever get. <\/p>\n
Opened in 2022, the museum on West 45th Street traces the history of Broadway theater from its earliest days downtown. \u201cIt\u2019s a celebration of the art form that so many people love,\u201d said Julie Boardman, a Tony-winning producer who is one of the museum\u2019s founders. \u201cIt was really wild that we didn\u2019t have a place that honored all of the people who made Broadway shows.\u201d <\/p>\n
Visitors start their tour with a brief video detailing the city\u2019s theatrical roots, from the first performance in 1732 in a building in Chinatown through its gradual move uptown to the Times Square area. Equipped with that historical background, visitors take a chronological journey through three floors of memorabilia highlighting Broadway shows through the decades, starting with an opulent room devoted to the Ziegfeld Follies. Turn the corner and you\u2019re in a room with cornstalks as high as, well, an elephant\u2019s eye, where the focus is on \u201cOklahoma!,\u201d the 1943 musical that was the first show for a duo that became legend, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. <\/p>\n
Continuing through the years, posters highlight both hits and flops, while bigger areas are devoted to megahits like \u201cPhantom of the Opera,\u201d \u201cRent\u201d and \u201cWicked.\u201d Caf\u00e9 chairs in the \u201cCabaret\u201d space encourage visitors to strike a pose worthy of a KitKat girl. A re-creation of the set for the 2021 revival of \u201cCompany\u201d invites guests to take pictures with that all-important birthday cake. <\/p>\n
Costumes are sprinkled throughout \u2014 a red leotard and dance skirt from \u201cA Chorus Line,\u201d a feathered headpiece from \u201cHello, Dolly!,\u201d the blood-stained white dress worn by Rachel Zegler in \u201cRomeo and Juliet.\u201d Props and accessories share a wall, including a stack of newspapers from \u201cNewsies,\u201d Harold Hill\u2019s suitcase from \u201cThe Music Man\u201d and Patti LuPone\u2019s martini glass from \u201cCompany.\u201d On the ground floor, visitors learn about all the people it takes to put on a show, from stage managers and choreographers to scenic and costume designers. There\u2019s even a shoutout to Broadway publicists. <\/p>\n
One solemn room honors the Broadway artists lost to AIDS. And getting a lot of attention these days is a special exhibit on Broadway puppetry. Milky White, the beloved cow from \u201cInto the Woods,\u201d sits in the middle of one room; nearby is Trekkie Monster from \u201cAvenue Q.\u201d On the first floor, Olaf from \u201cFrozen\u201d holds court in one corner, while the tiger from \u201cThe Life of Pi\u201d is ready to leap out of a boat in another. Seeing the puppets up close \u201creally sparks the imagination,\u201d said Boardman. And that\u2019s her goal for the museum, as well. Visitors will look at their next Broadway show \u201ca little differently,\u201d she said. \u201cThey can appreciate the magic they see on stage.\u201d <\/p>\n
Open Monday-Wednesday, 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Thursday-Sunday, 9:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.; tickets, timed entry\u00a0$39-$43, flexible entry\u00a0$49, students\u00a0$31, seniors (65 and over) $34, children 4 and under free; 212-239-6200,
themuseumofbroadway.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dance in front of the mirrors from \u201cA Chorus Line.\u201d Play on the flower-cover swing from \u201cHair.\u201d Sit…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":365809,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75,84,83,9,24,63,904],"class_list":["post-365808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-things-to-do"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365808\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/365809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}