Decade's Most Memorable Theater

A decade's snapshot of the most memorable productions Broadway had to offer:

• "The Producers" (2001) and "Hairspray" (2002) -- Laugh-filled, old-fashioned musical-comedy entertainment, both shows were based on movies that had a big cult following and both featured classic, larger-than-life comic performances: Nathan Lane in "The Producers" and Harvey Fierstein in "Hairspray."

• August Wilson's "King Hedley II" (2001), "Gem of the Ocean" (2004), "Radio Golf" (2007) -- It was a race against time as Wilson struggled to finish "Radio Golf," the last chapter in his monumental, 10-play saga about the black experience in 20th-century America. Wilson died in 2005 of liver cancer after the world premiere of "Radio Golf" at Yale Rep in New Haven, Connecticut.

• "Wicked" (2003) -- Hands down, the most successful American musical of the decade, a cannily crafted show that combined an affection for "The Wizard of Oz" with an appeal to the outsider in all of us. The show, based on the novel by Gregory Maguire, became a must-see, especially for young women who bonded with a green witch named Elphaba.

• "Mamma Mia!" (2001) and "Jersey Boys" (2005) -- These shows demonstrate the jukebox musical is not dead, but the songs need to be theatrically showcased. These two shows - one, a London import, the second, a savvy tapping of baby boomer nostalgia under Des McAnuff's cinematic direction - did the trick.

• "Doubt" (2005) -- John Patrick Shanley's expert treatise on the pitfalls of certainty, featuring an extraordinary performance by Cherry Jones as a nun who is very sure, or is she?

• "The Coast of Utopia" (2006) -- One of the more ambitious projects by Britain's most ambitious playwright, Tom Stoppard: a three-part, nine-hour look at Russian intellectuals in the 19th century. And Lincoln Center Theater had the considerable resources to produce it handsomely.

• "Spring Awakening" (2007) -- Every successful rock musical that comes along is proclaimed the future of the American musical theater. This one, written by Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater, could be. Let's see what the twosome produce next.

• "August: Osage County" (2007) -- Tracy Letts' journey into the heart of one family's darkness. Big, sprawling and maybe a little messy, but quite a dramatic production, which originated at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company.