I should adjust the above to mention that between the late 1950s and the late 1960s, there were three quite successful Off-Broadway musical revivals, not two: The Boy Friend, Leave It to Jane, and The Boys From Syracuse. Anything Goes achieved a decent but hardly great run. I have no idea if it recouped, but since that version was licensed, perhaps there was also revenue from the licensing of that version, which was widely performed. Oh, Kay! and By Jupiter had decent but clearly disappointing runs, but both left behind cast recordings. There were several others that had short runs, although two of those, The Cradle Will Rock and Cabin in the Sky, also got cast recordings.
I'm not including the slightly earlier Threepenny Opera in this as the original was hardly beloved, except among a smallish group of aficionados, at the time of the revival. Of course, The Boy Friend was so recent as to be a sort of special case, in addition to it being a pastiche of 1920s musicals. |
