Welcome to Playbill's fourth annual Broadway Brackets! For this year's bracket, fans will decide which musical based on a novel will reign supreme as the 2020 Broadway Brackets Champion. This year, the theme is musicals based on novels.
Voting for division 1, round 1 voting began March 24 at 11:30AM ET.
Here’s how it works: Playbill took 16 musicals based on novels and placed them into two divisions based on the year the original novel was published. We then ranked those musicals within that division according to what year their respective musical premiered on Broadway. In the event of a tie, the actual date of the premiere determined its ranking—earlier ranking higher.
For example, Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist was published in 1839, with the stage musical adaptation Oliver! premiering on Broadway in 1963, and My Love, My Love; or, The Peasant Girl by Rosa Guy was published in 1985, with Once On This Island making its Broadway premiere in 1990, making them the top-ranking shows in their divisions. They were then paired accordingly with the musical in their division with the most recent Broadway premiere. Each bracket was then broken down into subsequent match-ups.
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Here’s a look at the breakdown and ranking for this year's Sweet Sixteen:
DIVISION 1
(1) Oliver! — 1962
(Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens — 1863)
(2) Big River — 1985
(The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain — 1884)
(3) The Phantom of the Opera — January 9, 1987
(The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux— 1911)
(4) Les Misérables — February 28, 1987
(Les Misérables by Victor Hugo — 1862)
(5) The Secret Garden — 1991
(The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett — 1911)
(6) Jekyll & Hyde — 1997
(Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson — 1886)
(7) Little Women — 2005
(Little Women by Louisa May Alcott — 1868)
(8) Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812 — 2016
(War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy — 1869)
DIVISION 2
(1) Once on This Island — 1990
(My Love, My Love; or, The Peasant Girl by Rosa Guy — 1985)
(2) Wicked — 2003
(Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire — 1995)
(3) The Color Purple — 2005
(The Color Purple by Alice Walker — 1982)
(4) Mary Poppins — 2006
(Mary Poppins by P.L. Travers — 1934)
(5) Matilda — April 11, 2013
(Matilda by Roald Dahl —1988)
(6) Big Fish — April 21, 2013
(Big Fish: A Novel of Mythical Proportions by Daniel Wallace — 1998)
(7) Tuck Everlasting — 2016
(Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbit — 1975)
(8) Charlie and the Chocolate Factory — 2017
(Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl — 1964)
