Despite the plethoric museum and cultural offer of the American megalopolis, there was still no place entirely devoted to the history of Broadway and its theaters, which shaped the identity of New York and produced some 30 million dollars. ticketing revenue on average per week.

"The idea is that we stand on the shoulders of those who came before us," theater producer Julie Boardman, co-founder of the museum, told AFP, which stands on three levels a stone's throw from Times. Square and its giant screens.

The Broadway museum indeed tells some 200 years of history of the genre and reviews more than 500 productions through posters, period costumes, portraits of its former glories or even the reconstituted cafeteria of an old theater. .

A visitor gazes at photos inside the Broadway Museum in New York on November 15, 2022 TIMOTHY A. CLARY AFP

Some rooms are dedicated to works that have marked the history of musicals, such as "The Phantom of the Opera" (which will drop the curtain in New York in February 2023 after 35 years on stage, longevity record), " The Lion King", "The Wizard of Oz", "Rent" (inspired by the opera "La Bohème" by Puccini), "Hair" or "Show Boat".

At the end of the course, "you go behind the scenes" to discover the production of a show and "its different trades", explains Julie Boardman.

The Covid-19 pandemic, which brought New York to its knees and forced the quarantine of Broadway theaters to close for 18 months, has put the sector to very severe test.

But for a year, the rooms are filling up again.

A visitor inside the Broadway museum on November 15, 2022 in New York TIMOTHY A. CLARY AFP

According to the professional organization Broadway League, some 270,000 people thronged to one of the 34 shows presented last week, compared to just under 290,000 at the same time in 2019, the year before the pandemic.

And some musicals, like the "Phantom of the Opera";

"MJ the Musical," a biopic about Michael Jackson;

or "Hamilton", the enormous success of Lin-Manuel Miranda which revisits the birth of the United States, are sold out.

© 2022 AFP