- 6 April 1947 – First Tony Awards ceremony was held at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City
- 12 April 1937 – Death of Abdülhak Hâmid Tarhan, an early 20th-century Turkish playwright and poet who was one of the leading lights of the Turkish Romantic period
- 23 April 1616 – Death of William Shakespeare (pictured), often considered the greatest English playwright
- 24 April 1884 – Death of Marie Taglioni, who, in La Sylphide, was the first ballerina to dance en pointe for an entire piece
- 29 April 1968 – Broadway premiere of Hair, which defined the genre of the "rock musical"