Off-Broadway

[2] The term originally referred to any venue, and its productions, on a street intersecting Broadway in Midtown Manhattan's Theater District, the hub of the American theatre industry.

[5] According to theatre historians Ken Bloom and Frank Vlastnik, off-Broadway offered a new outlet for "poets, playwrights, actors, songwriters, and designers.

[8] Many off-Broadway shows have had subsequent runs on Broadway, including such musicals as Hair, Godspell, Little Shop of Horrors, Sunday in the Park with George, Rent, Grey Gardens, Urinetown, Avenue Q, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Rock of Ages, In the Heights, Spring Awakening, Next to Normal, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Fun Home, Hamilton, Dear Evan Hansen, Hadestown, and Kimberly Akimbo.

[6] Plays that have moved from off-Broadway houses to Broadway include Doubt, I Am My Own Wife, Bridge & Tunnel, The Normal Heart, and Coastal Disturbances.

Other productions, such as Stomp, Blue Man Group, Altar Boyz, Perfect Crime, Forbidden Broadway, Nunsense, Naked Boys Singing, Bat Boy: The Musical, and I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change have had runs of many years off-Broadway, never moving to Broadway.