The Phantom of the Opera (1986 musical) and the 1988 Tony Award for Best Musical, and Michael Crawford (in the title role) won the Olivier and Tony Awards for Best Actor in a Musical. It is the longest running show in Broadway history by a wide margin, and celebrated its 10,000th Broadway performance on 11 February 2012, the first production ever to do so. It is the second longest-running West End musical, after "Les Misérables", and the third longest-running West End show overall, after "The Mousetrap". With total estimated worldwide gross receipts of over $5.6 billion and total Broadway gross of $845 million, "Phantom" was the most
The Phantom (play) successful in attendance, though the quality of the entertainment offered might reasonably be expected to call out an unusually large patronage". Before the show, there were short farces, following with Mrs. Boucicault portraying "One of the most charming characters in "Milly, the Maid with the Milking Pail," and with "Kerry," Mr. Boucicault's masterpeiece (as a writer and actor). The phantom "The most weird, thrilling, and intensely sensational of all Mr. Boucicault’s plays." Mrs. M. E. W. Sherwood's review in "The New York Times", 20 January 1875: "Then . . . comes a vision of Boucicault playing the 'Vampire,' a dreadful