Overview & visitor information
The Broadway Theater District is not the full length of Broadway but a concentration of professional theaters around Times Square, mainly from West 41st to West 54th Streets. Broadway status depends on industry definitions and theater capacity, not simply an address on the avenue that gives the form its name.
Playhouses built largely in the early twentieth century hide elaborate auditoriums behind comparatively narrow street façades. Musicals and plays rotate through these rooms while producers, performers, musicians, stage crews, designers, ticket sellers and neighboring rehearsal spaces form an economic network extending far beyond what audiences see on stage.
Illuminated marquees and crowds make the district visually continuous with Times Square, but every theater retains a distinct plan, history and ownership. The official Internet Broadway Database records productions and venues over time, revealing Broadway as a changing repertory of commercial work housed within a largely historic architectural cluster.
