Musical Theater
- Aladdin (Cole Porter) London production opened at the Coliseum on December 17.
- Destry Rides Again Broadway production opened at the Imperial Theatre on April 23 and ran for 472 performances
- Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be (Lionel Bart) – Stratford production opened at the Theatre Royal on April 17 and ran for 63 performances
- Fiorello! Broadway production opened at the Broadhurst Theatre on November 23 and ran for 795 performances
- Gypsy (Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim) – Broadway production opened at the Broadway Theatre on May 21 and ran for 702 performances
- Hooray for Daisy London production opened at the Lyric Opera House, Hammersmith on December 20 and ran for 51 performances
- Juno (Marc Blitzstein) – opened at the Winter Garden Theatre, New York, March 9, 1959
- Kawaii onna (Toshirō Mayuzumi), Osaka
- Lend An Ear Broadway revival opened at the Renata Theatre on September 24 and ran for 94 performances
- Little Mary Sunshine Broadway production opened at the Orpheum Theatre on November 18 and ran for 1143 performances.
- Lock Up Your Daughters (Lionel Bart) – London production opened at the Mermaid Theatre on May 28 and ran for 328 performances
- The Love Doctor London production opened at the Piccadilly Theatre on October 12 and ran for only 16 performances.
- On the Town Broadway revival opened at the Carnegie Hall Playhouse on January 15 and ran for 70 performances
- Redhead Broadway production opened at the 46th Street Theatre on February 5 and ran for 405 performances
- Shakespeare in Harlem (Margaret Bonds) – Westport, CT
- The Sound of Music (Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II) – Broadway production opened at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre on November 16 and ran for 1443 performances.
- Take Me Along Broadway production opened at the Shubert Theatre on October 22 and ran for 448 performances
Read more about this topic: 1959 In Music
Famous quotes containing the words musical and/or theater:
“Then, bringing me the joy we feel when wee see a work by our favorite painter which differs from any other that we know, or if we are led before a painting of which we have until then only seen a pencil sketch, if a musical piece heard only on the piano appears before us clothed in the colors of the orchestra, my grandfather called me the [hawthorn] hedge at Tansonville, saying, “You who are so fond of hawthorns, look at this pink thorn, isn’t it lovely?””
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)
“We all know that the theater and every play that comes to Broadway have within themselves, like the human being, the seed of self-destruction and the certainty of death. The thing is to see how long the theater, the play, and the human being can last in spite of themselves.”
—James Thurber (1894–1961)