Musicals by decade
Broadway musicals of the 1920s and 1930s
Before Oklahoma!, Broadway musicals were mostly revues and musical comedies built around star turns and hit songs. Show Boat (1927) was the great exception, a musical with a serious story, and Porgy and Bess followed in 1935.
Below are the shows in our library that first opened on Broadway in the 1920s and 1930s, in order of premiere. Tap any title for the full show guide.
3 musicals on this list.
- Show Boat1927 · Jerome Kern · Golden AgeShow Boat is a groundbreaking musical drama set aboard a Mississippi River show boat, tracing decades of love, loss, and change among its performers and crew.
- Anything Goes1934 · Cole Porter · ComedyAnything Goes is Cole Porter's 1934 shipboard comedy about mistaken identities and a nightclub singer named Reno Sweeney, set aboard an ocean liner bound for England.
- Porgy and Bess1935 · George Gershwin · Sung-throughPorgy and Bess is George Gershwin's groundbreaking sung-through opera set in a close-knit Black community on the South Carolina coast.
More lists of musicals
- Halloween musicals
- Disney musicals
- Family-friendly musicals
- Sad musicals
- Based on movies
- Based on books
- Based on plays
- True stories
- Jukebox musicals
- Golden Age musicals
- Sung-through musicals
- Rock and pop musicals
- 1940s musicals
- 1950s musicals
- 1960s musicals
- 1970s musicals
- 1980s musicals
- 1990s musicals
- 2000s musicals
- 2010s musicals
- 2020s musicals