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About the Broadway Show League
By Commissioner Dan Landon
In the early 1950s the casts and crews of Broadway shows got into the habit of walking up to Central Park on Wednesdays for informal picnics and softball games before they returned to the theatre for the evening performance. In early 1955, John Effrat, an employee of the Actor’s Fund, established a more formal league with several associates that would play on Thursday afternoons, which they called the Broadway Show League. For the last 46 summer seasons the league has played on Thursday afternoons on the Hecksher Fields in Central Park, which lie just inside the park at Central Park West and 63rd Street.
The league is comprised of groups of people who work on Broadway and Off Broadway shows, as well as union teams and theatrical organizations. The league constantly features celebrities who are currently on the boards in shows, as well as the members of the crews that work on the shows.
The league plays a 10-game schedule, followed by playoffs to determine the champions in various categories, as well as special All Stars and Old Timers games for charity. The league is co-ed (two women must play the field at all times), and is an embedded part of the tradition of Central Park and the New York Theatre.
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