This photo shows three copies of the Playbills that were distributed to theater audiences during the Broadway engagements. The upper left corner indicates each of the three theaters in which the show played from September 1957 to December 1960. For most of the Broadway run, the Playbill cover featured what is arguably the most familiar image of the musical. The shot of Carol Lawrence and Larry Kert capering along West 56th Street in New York also constituted the cover of the Original Cast Album, the Random House edition of the play, sheet music and music collections, window cards, posters, flyers, and countless other items connected to the show, including:
The souvenir program that was sold at the theater during the earliest period of the initial run.
Opening night audiences were treated to this special one-time-only edition of the Playbill. Only the cover marked the special occasion; the inside pages featured the standard articles and play information that would typically appear in the book.
Four days after West Side Story opened on Broadway, Playbill implemented a new format, with a new policy dictating the cover art. Up until this time the ushers in a theater distributed a Playbill whose cover contained a scene or logo specifically connected to the particular show playing there. The new plan called for Playbill to select (or commission) a theater-relevant work of art and display the same picture on the cover for all the theaters, with only the title changing from one playhouse to the next. The sample presented here, dated October 21, 1957, shows artwork by noted Broadway designer Tony Walton. The cover changed every week, but the "new-look" experiment lasted less than four months, and by mid-January 1958 the 56th Street photo was re-instated and remained there for the balance of the run.
As popular as the 56th Street photo proved to be, it was nevertheless replaced on the program cover not too many months into the run. The splashy cover that took its place depicted the show through the more electric romance of Anita and Bernardo, and better emphasized the dance element. This pose, or one just like it with different actors, mounted against the eye-catching red background, remained the standard cover art for this production, whether in the first New York production, on the United States National Tour, and for the Broadway Return Engagement. By the time this edition was sold in the theater lobby, the companion Playbill had withdrawn the "new-look" experiment and re-instated the 56th Street photo of Maria and Tony; thus between the two books four important roles were prominently displayed, and this would continue to be the case in New York for the balance of the first run as well as for the entire Return Engagement.
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