New York is world-famous for many things, including its Broadway shows. Every year there are between 30 and 40 new shows and plays, some of which only run for a very short time, but some become real evergreens.

Which Broadway shows have been playing in New York for the longest time? I’ll tell you here!

My tip: You can find even more exciting fun facts and records in my article about Broadway facts and here you can find all the currently popular Broadway shows in NYC.

What does “longest running” actually mean?

Broadway, like most industries, has a metric system to measure success. In this case, it’s not the years but the number of performances that dictate the length of a show’s run. Some Broadway shows can run for a number of years but have fewer performances due to scheduling factors. For instance, shows that run only on weekends will naturally have fewer performances than those that run all week. Therefore, when I speak of the “longest-running” Broadway shows, I am referring to those that have chalked up the most performances. You can also see this in my table below in the “Number of Days” column.

These are the TOP 40 longest-running Broadway shows of all time

What I found really interesting is the fact that the TOP 10 longest running musicals on Broadway have as many performances in total as #11 through #40 combined. I’ve linked the shows you can still attend today.