Showing off songs and sequins, Museum of Broadway opens in New York

NEW YORK — Right on Times Square in the heart of New York’s theater district, a new Museum of Broadway is designed to take fans behind the curtain of some of its biggest musicals.

Rooms in the museum on 45th Street, which opened on Tuesday, use music, videos, glittering costumes, and walk-through sets to tell the history of how the theater district came to be. It also covers groundbreaking shows from West Side Story to Cats, with details on who does what behind the scenes.

“Broadway’s been around, you know, since the 1700s. And so we just are really wanting to bring that to life,” said co-founder Julie Boardman.

The heart of Broadway Theater was located downtown in Union Square in the 1850s and arrived in Times Square in the early 1900s. A show is considered “Broadway” when performed in about 40 theaters with 500 or more seats in the Broadway District in Midtown Manhattan.

“It’s a very uniquely American art form that’s developed here. And so, you know, it should be here, and it should be in Times Square,” Ms. Boardman said. — Reuters