Queen's Theatre in a modern style. The reconstructed theatre opened 8 July 1959 with John Gielgud's solo performance in "Shakespeare speeches and sonnets, Ages of Man". Since April 2004, the theatre has played host to Cameron Mackintosh's production of "Les Misérables" which transferred after 18 years at the nearby Palace Theatre. The musical celebrated its 20th anniversary at the venue on 8 October 2005 and overtook "Cats" as the longest running musical of all time a year later on 8 October 2006. The theatre was Grade II listed by English Heritage in June 1972. An extensive refurbishment was undertaken in the latter
Musical theatre later musical theatre was profound, creating examples of how to "integrate" musicals so that the lyrics and dialogue advanced a coherent story. Their works were admired and copied by early authors and composers of musicals in Britain and America. "A Trip to Chinatown" (1891) was Broadway's long-run champion (until "Irene" in 1919), running for 657 performances, but New York runs continued to be relatively short, with a few exceptions, compared with London runs, until the 1920s. Gilbert and Sullivan were both pirated and imitated in New York by productions such as Reginald De Koven's "Robin Hood" (1891) and John Philip