The Unforgettable Productions of the Century - Ben Brantley

Greatness is far and few between. Looking at the current productions on and off Broadway, how many would you say are great - are unforgettable? How many will remain at the forefront of your memory? How many will you watch over and over? 

Here is how The New York Times Book of Broadway edited by Ben Brantley (2001) defines the 125 unforgettable productions of the century. 

But first, this lovely quote from the introduction: When the elements of a play or a musical cohere into surreally smooth symmetry or jangling novelty, an electricity starts flowing between the audience and the performers on stage and within the audience itself.

Peter Pan La Dame aux Camélias The Little Millionaire Heartbreak House Ziegfeld Follies of 1921 The Hairy Ape Abie’s Irish Rose Six Characters in Search of an Author Hamlet (John Barrymore) The Adding Machine The Green Hat Sex Funny Face Show Boat The Front Page Animal Crackers Girl Crazy Private Lives Mourning Becomes Electra Design for Living The 3-Penny Opera Tobacco Road Anything Goes Waiting for Lefty Porgy and Bess Dead End Idiot’s Delight Hamlet (John Gielgud) You Can’t Take It with You The Women Our Town The Boys from Syracuse The Little Foxes The Philadelphia Story Life with Father Pal Joey Arsenic and Old Lace Lady in the Dark Oklahoma! Othello (Paul Robeson) On the Town The Glass Menagerie Annie Get Your Gun No Exit A Streetcar Named Desire Kiss Me, Kate Death of a Salesman South Pacific Gentlemen Prefer Blondes The Member of the Wedding Come Back, Little Sheba Guys and Dolls Anthony and Cleopatra (Laurence Olivier & Vivian Leigh) The Crucible Damn Yankees The Diary of Anne Frank My Fair Lady Waiting for Godot Long Day’s Journey into Night West Side Story Look Back in Anger The Music Man A Raisin in the Sun

Gypsy The Fantasticks Rhinoceros The Blacks The Caretaker Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Beyond the Fringe Hello, Dolly! The Blood Knot Funny Girl Hamlet (Richard Burton) Fiddler on the Roof The Odd Couple Marat/Sade Cabaret Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead The Boys in the Band Hair Frankenstein (The Living Theater) The Great White Hope Promises, Promises Oh! Calcutta! No, No, Nanette A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Peter Brook) Follies The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel Much Ado About Nothing Butley The Hot L Baltimore A Moon for the Misbegotten Short Eyes Equus A Chorus Line For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf The Cherry Orchard Uncommon Women and Others Ain’t Misbehavin” Buried Child Sweeney Todd Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You Dreamgirls Cats Plenty Moose Murders Glengarry Glen Ross The Mystery of Irma Vep Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom Les Misérables Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune Six Degrees of Separation Angels in America (Part 1: Millennium Approaches) Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 Rent Bring in da Noise/Bring in da Funk Chicago A Doll’s House The Lion King The Beauty Queen of Lennane The Emperor Jones (The Wooster Group) Wit The Play About the Baby The Producers