two people dressed as lions holding swords facing each other on a stage; yellow, orange and red circles with question marks surround them

Photo Illustration: MOA STAFF; (Source: Stephane Cardinale/Corbis via Getty Images)

Take Our Best of Broadway Quiz

See how much you remember about iconic shows like ‘Chicago,’ ‘My Fair Lady’ and ‘Hamilton’

Jayme Deerwester,

AARP

Published June 02, 2023

10 Questions

Gear up for this year's Tony Awards and get yourself in a Broadway mood with our trivia test about some of the biggest shows in history. Don’t be shy about giving our questions a try. Take a note from “Hamilton,” and don’t throw away your shot at a high score!

Take Our Best of Broadway Quiz

[ {
  "question" : "True or false: Julie Andrews has never won a Tony Award.",
  "answers" : [ {
    "answer" : "True",
    "correctAnswer" : true
  }, {
    "answer" : "False",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  } ],
  "multiSelect" : false,
  "explanation" : "Andrews was nominated three times — for 1957’s “My Fair Lady,” 1961’s “Camelot” and 1996’s “Victor/Victoria” — but hasn’t taken home a trophy. Her skills were recognized by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, however. She won the best actress Oscar for the movie adaptation of “Mary Poppins” in 1965.",
  "hint" : "",
  "hintLink" : "",
  "questionImgCaption" : "",
  "questionImgCredit" : ""
}, {
  "question" : "Which actress won a Tony for “Sweet Charity” the same year she first appeared on-screen as Frasier Crane’s love interest on the show “Cheers”?",
  "answers" : [ {
    "answer" : "Kirstie Alley",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  }, {
    "answer" : "Shelley Long",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  }, {
    "answer" : "Bebe Neuwirth",
    "correctAnswer" : true
  }, {
    "answer" : "Rhea Perlman",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  } ],
  "multiSelect" : false,
  "explanation" : "Broadway veteran Bebe Neuwirth won a best actress Tony Award in 1986 for her role in “Sweet Charity,” the same year she first appeared on “Cheers” as stoic psychiatrist Dr. Lilith Sternin. She returned to Broadway in the 1990s and won another Tony for playing Velma Kelly in a revival of “Chicago.” In fact, she eventually played all three female leads in “Chicago”: Velma, Roxie Hart and Matron “Mama” Morton.",
  "hint" : "",
  "hintLink" : "",
  "questionImgCaption" : "",
  "questionImgCredit" : ""
}, {
  "question" : "True or false: The 1996 movie “The Birdcage” was loosely based on the Broadway musical “La Cage aux Folles.”",
  "answers" : [ {
    "answer" : "True",
    "correctAnswer" : true
  }, {
    "answer" : "False",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  } ],
  "multiSelect" : false,
  "explanation" : "“The Birdcage” is based on the French film adaptation of “La Cage aux Folles.” The plot in both the musical and the movie focuses on a gay nightclub owner in a long-term relationship with a drag performer who is asked to play straight when meeting his son’s fiancée’s parents; her father is a conservative politician. The stage version won the best musical Tony in 1984.",
  "hint" : "",
  "hintLink" : "",
  "questionImgCaption" : "",
  "questionImgCredit" : ""
}, {
  "question" : "Which Disney movie-to-stage adaptation won a 1998 Tony Award for best musical?",
  "answers" : [ {
    "answer" : "“The Lion King”",
    "correctAnswer" : true
  }, {
    "answer" : "“Beauty and the Beast”",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  }, {
    "answer" : "“Frozen”",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  }, {
    "answer" : "“Aladdin”",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  } ],
  "multiSelect" : false,
  "explanation" : "“Beauty and the Beast,” “Frozen” and “Aladdin” were all made into Broadway shows, but  “The Lion King” was the only one to win the Tony for best musical.",
  "hint" : "",
  "hintLink" : "",
  "questionImgCaption" : "",
  "questionImgCredit" : ""
}, {
  "question" : "True or false: “My Fair Lady” is a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical.",
  "answers" : [ {
    "answer" : "True",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  }, {
    "answer" : "False",
    "correctAnswer" : true
  } ],
  "multiSelect" : false,
  "explanation" : "The prolific duo of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein wrote a long list of musicals, including “Carousel,” “Oklahoma!,” “South Pacific,” “The King and I” and “The Sound of Music,” but “My Fair Lady” is an adaptation of George Bernard Shaw’s 1913 play “Pygmalion” by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Lowe.",
  "hint" : "",
  "hintLink" : "",
  "questionImgCaption" : "",
  "questionImgCredit" : ""
}, {
  "question" : "Who won an Oscar for the 2002 movie version of “Chicago”?",
  "answers" : [ {
    "answer" : "Renée Zellweger",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  }, {
    "answer" : "Catherine Zeta-Jones",
    "correctAnswer" : true
  }, {
    "answer" : "Queen Latifah",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  }, {
    "answer" : "Richard Gere",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  } ],
  "multiSelect" : false,
  "explanation" : "Zellweger, Queen Latifah and Zeta-Jones were all nominated for their work as, respectively, Roxie Hart, Matron “Mama” Morton and Velma Kelly, but Zeta-Jones went home with a trophy for best supporting actress. Gere wasn’t nominated; however, John C. Reilly was, for playing Roxy’s husband Amos Hart.",
  "hint" : "",
  "hintLink" : "",
  "questionImgCaption" : "",
  "questionImgCredit" : ""
}, {
  "question" : "Which religiously themed musical was written by the creators of the animated TV show “South Park”?",
  "answers" : [ {
    "answer" : "“Fiddler on the Roof”",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  }, {
    "answer" : "“Sister Act”",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  }, {
    "answer" : "“Jesus Christ Superstar”",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  }, {
    "answer" : "“The Book of Mormon”",
    "correctAnswer" : true
  } ],
  "multiSelect" : false,
  "explanation" : "Trey Parker and Matt Stone gave us a taste of their musical chops in the 1999 movie “South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut,” which took inspiration from shows like “Beauty and the Beast” and “Les Misérables.”  But in 2011, they served musical theater nerds a feast with the Tony-winning “Book of Mormon,” which follows two young missionaries sent to Uganda to try to  convert others into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.",
  "hint" : "",
  "hintLink" : "",
  "questionImgCaption" : "",
  "questionImgCredit" : ""
}, {
  "question" : "Which is the longest-running musical on Broadway?",
  "answers" : [ {
    "answer" : "“Les Misérables”",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  }, {
    "answer" : "“Chicago”",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  }, {
    "answer" : "“The Phantom of the Opera”",
    "correctAnswer" : true
  }, {
    "answer" : "“Cats”",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  } ],
  "multiSelect" : false,
  "explanation" : "Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “The Phantom of the Opera” ran from January 1998 to April 2023, making it the longest-running show on the Great White Way. “Chicago” and “The Lion King” round out the top three.",
  "hint" : "",
  "hintLink" : "",
  "questionImgCaption" : "",
  "questionImgCredit" : ""
}, {
  "question" : "True or false: Idina Menzel won a Tony Award for her role in the Broadway adaptation of the movie “Frozen.”",
  "answers" : [ {
    "answer" : "True",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  }, {
    "answer" : "False",
    "correctAnswer" : true
  } ],
  "multiSelect" : false,
  "explanation" : "Menzel scored her first Tony nomination for the equivalent of supporting actress in 1996’s “Rent” and won the lead actress Tony for “Wicked” (2004). However, while she will always be associated with “Frozen” by virtue of having voiced Elsa in the 2013 movie, she did not appear in the Broadway version.",
  "hint" : "",
  "hintLink" : "",
  "questionImgCaption" : "",
  "questionImgCredit" : ""
}, {
  "question" : "This “Hamilton” character serves as the narrator of the show and sings “The Room Where It Happened” and “Wait for It.”",
  "answers" : [ {
    "answer" : "Alexander Hamilton",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  }, {
    "answer" : "Aaron Burr",
    "correctAnswer" : true
  }, {
    "answer" : "George Washington",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  }, {
    "answer" : "Eliza Hamilton",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  } ],
  "multiSelect" : false,
  "explanation" : "Aaron Burr provides the narrative thread throughout both acts of the show. Along the way, Burr delivers two of the show’s biggest numbers: “Wait for It,” in which he defends his passive-aggressive approach to life, and “The Room Where It Happens,” where he expresses jealousy that he’s not as big a political player as Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson or James Madison.",
  "hint" : "",
  "hintLink" : "",
  "questionImgCaption" : "",
  "questionImgCredit" : ""
} ]

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Jayme Deerwester is an editor and writer with two decades of experience at USA TODAY, where she covered entertainment, travel, personal finance and technology. When not in front of a computer, she can be found rowing, kayaking or playing with her dog.