In Gerald Bormand’s American Musical Theatre: A Chronicle, he sums up the offerings of the 1987–1988 season of theater  in New York:

It was another busy season, towered over once again by another importation. And what did American writers offer their own audiences? Precious little. Only two new native works had appreciable merit, although both were nearly drowned out by the thundering ballyhoo accorded London’s latest contribution. Revivals of earlier Broadway hits provided some small compensation.

Bormand notes that the following productions were presented during this time: Dreamgirls was revived (20 December 1981). The New York City Opera mounted The Student Prince (originally premiered 2 December 1924) on 7 July 1987 and The Desert Song (originally premiered 30 November 1926) on 25 August 1987, two Romberg works, in addition to Sweeney Todd on 29 July 1987 and Die Fledermaus on 26 September 1987. According to Bormand, “The season’s first novelty was Roza (1 October 1987, Royale), which told of how a Polish concentration camp survivor (Georgia Brown) moves to Paris and befriends the dregs of the city’s society.” Bormand notes that Mort Sahl on Broadway (11 October 1987, Simon), a one-man show, provided a full evening by an artist that might have “flourished in those bygone forms” of “classic revue” and “vaudeville.” Bormand establishes that the season’s most successful revival was of Anything Goes (24 November 1934) at the Vivian Beaumont. A revival of Cabaret (20 November 1966), with Joel Grey reprising his role as the master of ceremonies, “ran out the season”. Further, according to Bormand, “South Africa gave us a protest musical, Sarafina! (25 October 1987, Newhouse), in which black high school students put on a play attacking apartheid and praising Nelson Mandela, the leader of the rebellious ANC.” Bormand notes, “Don’t Get God Started (29 October 1987, Longacre) might have been called an evangelical revue, with sermonizing sketches and gospel songs interwoven.” Bormand characterizes Into the Woods as “not a children’s musical.”

Regarding Off-Broadway fare, Bormand notes that in Oil City Symphony (5 November 1987, Circle-in-the-Square Downtown), “[f]our high school graduates form a band to present a concert in honor of a favorite teacher.” Set to songs by John Philip Sousa, Ted and Alice (12 November 1987) told the story of Teddy Roosevelt and his daughter, Alice. There was a magic show, Penn and Teller. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera is characterized as the season’s “runaway hit.”  The Gospel at Colonus (24 March 1988, Lunt-Fontanne) retold Sophocle’s Oedipus at Colonus with in an evening of “black evangelical fervor.” Oba Oba (29 March 1988, Ambassador) was a Brazilian revue of native song and dance. Mail (14 April 1988, Music Box) depicted an unpublished writer returning to his apartment after four months to read his missives, acted out by “writers, whether dunners, bulk-mail advertisers, his agent, or his sweetheart.” Featuring the popular young pianist, Michael Feinstein in Concert (19 April 1988, Lyceum) performed well-known songs. Chess (28 April 1988, Imperial), “with lyrics by Tim Rice and music by members of Sweden’s ABBA rock group, had been a smash hit in London,” and came to Broadway with a “toned-down book” that retained the rivalry between “a tantrum-throwing, nasty American chess champion…and his better-behaved Russian opponent.” Romance, Romance (1 May 1988, Hayes), was “a double bill of unexceptional but beguiling little musicals”; “The Little Comedy was based on an Arthur Schnitzler piece in which rich lovers pretend to be of a lower social class in order to forward their courtship, [and] Summer Share, based on Jean Renard’s Pain de Menage, told of two married couples who contemplate switching spouses.” According to Bormand, the season closed with “an unmitigated disaster”, a musical version of Stephen King’s horror novel, Carrie (12 May 1988, Virginia), featuring “high school brats slaughtering pigs (while stereophonic speakers screeched out the animals’ death cries and red disco lights flashed).”

Borland concludes of the business of theatre for the year: 

There were more pleasant aftershocks at season’s end when Broadway grosses were reported to have risen 21 percent to a whopping $253 million. Theatre moguls credited the rash of hit musicals—especially such foreign spectacles as Cats, Les Mis, Me and My Girl, and Phantom —for the increase, ignoring the fact that a new $50.00 top for musicals meant more money but not necessarily more playgoers.