Longest-running Broadway shows playing now

What are the longest-running Broadway shows currently playing?

Fourteen Broadway productions now running have passed their second anniversary. Chicago leads at close to thirty years, followed by The Lion King at twenty-eight and Wicked at twenty-two. Everything else playing on Broadway this week opened within the last two years, which is what makes these fourteen the exception rather than the shape of the business.

Long runs are what people picture when they picture Broadway, and they are close to the rarest thing on it. Fourteen productions currently playing have lasted two years. The median Broadway production closes after 87 days.

Why is two years the cut-off?

Because it is where “still running” stops being ordinary.

A Broadway production that reaches a second anniversary has survived two winters, two summers, and at least one cast change, and has been profitable for long enough to justify holding a theatre somebody else wants. Below that line the list would fill with productions that opened this year and tell you nothing about longevity.

The full distribution is in how long a Broadway show actually runs: the median run since 2010 is 87 days, and only 11% of productions reach a first anniversary.

Does a long run mean a better show?

It means a durable one, which is not the same claim.

A run continues while weekly grosses cover weekly running costs, and the things that keep that true are a recognisable title, a tourist audience that renews itself, a house the production can afford, and a show that survives being recast. Several of the most admired productions of the last decade closed inside a year. Several of the entries above have never had a rave review in their lives.

What a long run does reliably tell you is that the production has been seen a great many times and still works — which, if you are choosing a show to take someone to, is a more useful signal than a review from eleven years ago.

Which of these are closing?

Two, and both on the same night. SIX and & Juliet each play their final performance on 3 January 2027, which would take this list to twelve.

The first week of January is the most common closing week on Broadway, for reasons covered in Broadway shows closing soon. Nothing else on this list has an announced closing date, which is not the same as saying nothing else will close — a closing notice usually arrives four to twelve weeks before the final performance.

What replaces them?

Not much, in any given year. The productions opening this autumn and winter are listed in Broadway shows opening soon, and on the historical record only 11% of Broadway productions are still playing a year after they open.

That asymmetry is the business. A handful of productions run for decades and pay for everything else, and the list of what has lasted changes by one or two titles a year.

What's on this list

How we chose

Broadway productions in the Theatreview catalog that had opened on or before 17 September 2024, were still playing on 17 September 2026, and have no final performance earlier than that date. Ordered by opening night, longest first. Run length is measured from opening night, not from the first preview. This is what the catalog records as running, which is not the same as a guarantee that it holds every production playing Broadway this week — where a production is missing, it is missing from the catalog rather than from Broadway.

Current as of September 17, 2026.

Chicago

Opened 14 November 1996 and now playing at the Ambassador Theatre — approaching thirty years, and the longest-running production currently on Broadway by nearly a full year. It is a revival, which makes it the rare case of a second production outlasting the original by decades.

The Lion King

Musical · 1997

Opened 13 November 1997, now at the Minskoff Theatre after moving from the house it opened in. Twenty-eight years, and the highest-grossing title in Broadway history by a wide margin.

Wicked

Musical · 2003

Opened 30 October 2003 at the Gershwin Theatre, where it has played ever since — twenty-two years in one house, which is unusual even among long runs.

The Book of Mormon

Musical · 2011

Opened 24 March 2011 at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre and has not moved. Fifteen years, and the last production on this list to have opened before Hamilton changed what a Broadway advance could look like.

Aladdin

Opened 20 March 2014 at the New Amsterdam Theatre, the house The Lion King opened in. Twelve years, and the second Disney title to pass a decade on Broadway.

Hamilton

Musical · 2015

Opened 6 August 2015 at the Richard Rodgers Theatre. Eleven years, with productions also catalogued in London and on tour — the breadth is the unusual part rather than the length.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

Opened 22 April 2018 at the Lyric Theatre. Eight years, and the longest-running play on Broadway by a distance that no other play is close to.

Hadestown

Musical · 2006

Opened 17 April 2019 at the Walter Kerr Theatre, seven years ago, after a development path through off-Broadway, Edmonton, and London that took most of a decade.

SIX: The Musical

Opened 3 October 2021 at the Lena Horne Theatre, and closes 3 January 2027. Five years from opening night, but nearly seven from its first preview — it was due to open the night Broadway shut down in March 2020.

MJ The Musical

Opened 1 February 2022 at the Neil Simon Theatre after fifty-seven days of previews, more than twice the Broadway norm — one of the first new musicals to open after theatres reopened, and still running four and a half years later.

& Juliet

Musical · 2019

Opened 17 November 2022 at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre, and closes 3 January 2027 after more than four years — comfortably inside the top few percent of Broadway runs by length.

The Outsiders

Opened 11 April 2024 at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre. Two years, which is the threshold this list uses and a point most Broadway productions never reach.

The Great Gatsby

Musical · 2023

Opened 25 April 2024 at the Broadway Theatre, two weeks after The Outsiders and still running alongside it. Two years in one of the largest houses on Broadway.

Oh, Mary!

Play · 2024

Opened 11 July 2024 at the Lyceum Theatre, having transferred from off-Broadway. Two years, and the only play besides Harry Potter on this list.