performed mainly at hotels and venues owned by Ernie Byfield in cities like New York and Chicago. She began to sing at other clubs and resorts, eventually procuring an engagement at the Blue Angel club in Manhattan in 1950. Cook made her Broadway debut as Sandy in the short-lived 1951 musical Flahooley. She landed another role quickly, portraying Ado Annie in the 1951 City Center revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma!, and stayed with the production when it went on its national tour the following year. Also in 1952, Cook made her first television appearance on the show Armstrong Circle Theatre which presented her in an original play entitled Mr. Bemiss Takes a Trip. In 1954, Cook appeared in the short-lived soap opera Golden Windows and starred as Jane Piper in a television version of Victor Herbert's operetta Babes in Toyland. That summer, she returned to City Center to portray Carrie Pipperidge in a revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel, which Cook described as "the first time the critics really paid attention to me. It was like I was the new young thing. It was very important for me." In 1955, she received major critical praise for playing the supporting role of Hilda Miller in Plain and Fancy. Walter Kerr wrote of her performance: "Barbara Cook, right off a blue and white Dutch plate, is delicious all the time, but especially when she perches on a trunk, savors her first worthwhile kiss, and melts into the melody of 'This Is All Very New to Me'." Cook's critical reputation and coloratura soprano range won her the role of Cunegonde in Leonard Bernstein's 1956 operetta Candide, in which she premiered the vocally demanding, show-stopping comic aria "Glitter and Be Gay". Although Candide was not a commercial success, Cook's portrayal of Cunegonde established her as one of Broadway's leading ingenues. In 1957 she appeared in a second City Center revival of Carousel, this time in the role of Julie Jordan, and won a Tony Award for creating the role of Marian the Librarian in Meredith Willson's 1957 hit The Music Man. Cook continued to appear regularly on television in the late 1950s, starring in a 1956 Producers' Showcase production of Bloomer Girl, a 1957 live broadcast of The Yeomen of the Guard, and a 1958 musical adaptation of Hansel and Gretel. She also made appearances on Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Ed Sullivan Show,