Palace Theatre, London was musical director at the theatre from 1900 until 1920. The Marx Brothers appeared at the theatre in 1922, performing selections from their Broadway shows. In 1925, the musical comedy "No, No, Nanette" opened at the Palace Theatre, followed by other musicals, for which the theatre became known. "The Sound of Music" ran for 2,385 performances at the theatre, opening in 1961. "Jesus Christ Superstar" ran from 1972 to 1980, and "Les Misérables" played at the theatre for nineteen years, beginning in 1985. In 1983, Andrew Lloyd Webber purchased and by 1991 had refurbished the theatre. "Monty Python's Spamalot" played
Musical theatre forms. As transportation improved, poverty in London and New York diminished, and street lighting made for safer travel at night, the number of patrons for the growing number of theatres increased enormously. Plays ran longer, leading to better profits and improved production values, and men began to bring their families to the theatre. The first musical theatre piece to exceed 500 consecutive performances was the French operetta "The Chimes of Normandy" in 1878. English comic opera adopted many of the successful ideas of European operetta, none more successfully than the series of more than a dozen long-running Gilbert and Sullivan