#idk what the final performance count was but I know they hit ten thousand shows back in the early '10s so... higher than that.

[exeggcute]

one of my favorite this american life segments of late is about the people who played orchestra pit for phantom of the opera on broadway and how, like, a sizeable majority of them had literally been playing the show since it opened in 1988 (on broadway. I know it opened in 86 on the west end, you random pedants, but I am specifically talking about broadway musicians) because their contracts stipulated that they'd have jobs throughout the show's entire run... but nobody anticipated that phantom would become the longest-running broadway show of all time.

and none of these people wanted to walk away from a guaranteed job, so very few of them ever quit. they just kept doing the same show eight nights a week... for twenty or thirty years... and by the time it finally closed last year most of these musicians (who had been working together for DECADES) hated each other and really really fucking loathed phantom. I can't stop thinking about it. it's indescribably hellish to imagine but also the funniest thing I've ever heard in my life.

#idk what the final performance count was but I know they hit ten thousand shows back in the early '10s so... higher than that. #sigh okay I made an obvious typo and people who aren't familiar with theater keep asking so let me clarify: #they play eight SHOWS a week. four days of evening shows and two days of a matinee/evening back to back #which is eight shows over six nights. they get one night off.