Ethel Barrymore Theatre

May still be running1 open on the record

These opened in the last three years and carry no closing date. That is the strongest claim the data supports — an unrecorded closing looks exactly like a run still going, and the file was last checked in August 2026. A run that closed last week is still sitting in this list.

By decade175 productions across 11 decades

1. 1920s 3
2. 1930s 28
3. 1940s 23
4. 1950s 20
5. 1960s 22
6. 1970s 22
7. 1980s 11
8. 1990s 9
9. 2000s 13
10. 2010s 14
11. 2020s 10

Counted from the productions we hold, which are Broadway and a partial West End. A quiet decade here can mean a dark theatre and can mean a gap in the record.

Longest runs hereby performances

Ranked among the 174 runs here that record a performance count. 1 do not, so a longer run may be sitting outside this table with an empty field.

Everything that played here175 productions

In the literature8 passages

• One of the enduring urban legends of musical theatre is that the original production of Pal Joey , which opened on December 25, 1940, at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, was a failure that no one appreciated until the 1952 revival. Nothing could be more misleading. When the original production closed, it was the second-longest-running of all…ebooks/Dietz, Dan/Complete Book of 1950s Broadway Musicals, The - Dan Dietz.txt
• Wake Up, Darling by Alec Gottlieb (Ethel Barrymore Theatre, May 2, 1956, 5 performances)ebooks/Dietz, Dan/Complete Book of 1950s Broadway Musicals, The - Dan Dietz.txt
• The first musical to play the Ethel Barrymore Theatre (on 47th Street west of Broadway), Gay Divorce was the only stage production in which Fred Astaire performed without sister Adele. In the story, adapted from an unproduced play Astaire was seen as Guy Holden, a British novelist, who goes to a seaside resort to woo would-be divorcee Mim…ebooks/Green, Stanley/Broadway Musicals, Show By Show - Seventh Edition - Stanley Green & Cary Ginell.txt
• Knickerbocker Holiday (musical comedy, Maxwell Anderson), New York, Ethel Barrymore Theatre, 19 October 1938; film adaptation directed by Harry Joe Brown, released 17 March 1944.ebooks/Hinton, Stephen/Weill's Musical Theater_ Stages of Reform - Stephen Hinton.txt
• Godspell had been scheduled to begin previews Sept. 29 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre with an official opening for Oct. 23. In addition to Creel and [Diana] DeGarmo, the announced cast included Joshua Henry as Judas with Uzo Aduba, Andrew Arrington, Sara Chase, Celisse Henderson, Morgan James, David Josefsberg, Telly Leung, Kyle Post, Dan…ebooks/Tepper, Jennifer/Untold Stories of Broadway, Volume 2 PART 1, The - Jennifer Tepper.txt

What this page does not know

• What played here before Broadway record-keeping starts, and what played here outside it — concerts, benefits, film runs, anything that was not a listed production.
• How long 1 of these run lasted. No performance count on the record.
• When 25 of these runs ended. They carry an opening date and no closing date, and they are old enough that they certainly closed — nobody wrote down the date.