''Playbill'' is an American monthly magazine for
theatergoers. Although there is a subscription issue available for
home delivery
Delivery is the process of transporting goods from a source location to a predefined destination. Cargo (physical goods) is primarily delivered via roads and railroads on land, shipping lanes on the sea, and airline networks in the air. Cer ...
, most copies of ''Playbill'' are printed for particular productions and distributed at the door as the show's
program.
''Playbill'' was first printed in 1884 for a single theater on 21st Street in New York City. The magazine is now used at nearly every
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre,Although ''theater'' is generally the spelling for this common noun in the United States (see American and British English spelling differences), 130 of the 144 extant and extinct Broadway venues use (used) the spelling ''Th ...
, as well as many
Off-Broadway productions. Outside New York City, ''Playbill'' is used at theaters throughout the United States. As of September 2012, its
circulation was 4,073,680.
History
What is known today as ''Playbill'' started in 1884, when Frank Vance Strauss founded the New York Theatre Program Corporation specializing in printing theater programs. Strauss reimagined the concept of a theater program, making advertisements a standard feature and thus transforming what was then a leaflet into a fully designed magazine.
The new format proved popular with theatergoers, who started to collect playbills as souvenirs;
however, the name ''(The)'' ''Playbill'' did not appear until the 1930s while earlier programs published by the company simply bore the name of the venue.
In 1918, Frank Vance Strauss sold the company to his nephew, Richard M. Huber. From 1918 onward, the company started printing playbills for all of Broadway and by 1924, was printing 16,000,000 programs for over 60 theaters.
The 1920s also saw attempts to introduce consistency in the design with the covers of the magazines featuring artwork representing the theater, which would stay the same from show to show.
In 1934-35, the name ''The Playbill'' made its first appearance on the cover
although there was still no standard logo in that period. The design underwent a series of transformations with show titles occasionally switching places with ''The Playbill'' logo in various places on the cover until the magazine's logo found its permanent place at the top of the front cover
and the publication as it is known today became ''Playbill'' in 1957, under then-owner
Gilman Kraft
Gilman Kraft (April 22, 1926 – June 27, 1999) was an American publisher and former owner of ''Playbill''.
Biography
Kraft was born in Union City, New Jersey on April 22, 1926. During World War II, he served as a Japanese linguist. After gradua ...
.
Format
Each issue features articles focusing on actors, new
plays
Play most commonly refers to:
* Play (activity), an activity done for enjoyment
* Play (theatre), a work of drama
Play may refer also to:
Computers and technology
* Google Play, a digital content service
* Play Framework, a Java framework
* P ...
,
musicals, and special
attractions. This "wraparound" section is the same for all ''Playbill''s at all venues each month. Within this wraparound, the ''Playbill'' contains listings, photos, and biographies of the
cast
Cast may refer to:
Music
* Cast (band), an English alternative rock band
* Cast (Mexican band), a progressive Mexican rock band
* The Cast, a Scottish musical duo: Mairi Campbell and Dave Francis
* ''Cast'', a 2012 album by Trespassers William
...
; biographies of authors, composers, and production staff; a list of
scenes, as songs and their performers (for musicals); and a brief description of the setting for the particular show. It also lists the number of intermissions and "At This Theatre", a column with historical information on the theater housing the production. The ''Playbill'' distributed on opening night of a Broadway show is stamped with a seal on the cover and the date appears on the
title page
The title page of a book, thesis or other written work is the page at or near the front which displays its title, subtitle, author, publisher, and edition, often artistically decorated. (A half title, by contrast, displays only the title of a w ...
within the magazine. This is, however, not the case for every opening night playbill: there are many in circulation that don't feature the date.
In lieu of the cast and show information, the subscription edition of ''Playbill'' contains listings of Broadway and Off-Broadway productions and news from
London productions and North American touring companies.
The ''Playbill'' banner is yellow with black writing. Each June since 2014, the yellow banner has been replaced with a rainbow banner for
LGBT Pride Month
LGBT Pride Month is a month, typically in June, dedicated to celebration and commemoration of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) pride. Pride Month began after the Stonewall riots, a series of gay liberation protests in 1969, and ha ...
.
The Playbill banner has changed the yellow to another color on rare occasions in its history:
* October 2008 – green for the fifth anniversary of ''
Wicked
Wicked may refer to:
Books
* Wicked, a minor character in the ''X-Men'' universe
* '' Wicked'', a 1995 novel by Gregory Maguire that inspired the musical of the same name
* ''Wicked'', the fifth novel in Sara Shepard's ''Pretty Little Liars'' s ...
''
* October 2011 – royal blue for the tenth anniversary of ''
Mamma Mia!''
* October 2013 – green for the tenth anniversary of ''Wicked''
* April 2018 – white and red for the fifth anniversary of ''
Kinky Boots''
* November 2021 – black for the 25th anniversary of ''
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
''
Other media
''Playbill'' launched Playbill Online in January 1994. The free website offers news about the theater industry, focusing on New York shows but including
regional theater A regional theater or resident theater in the United States is a professional or semi-professional theater company that produces its own seasons. The term ''regional theater'' most often refers to a professional theater outside New York City. A reg ...
, touring, and international stage happenings. It is read by show fans and theater practitioners, and is updated regularly. It also offers discounts on tickets and dining for its members.
In 2000, ''Playbill'' added www.playbillstore.com, an
online shopping
Online shopping is a form of electronic commerce which allows consumers to directly buy goods or services from a seller over the Internet using a web browser or a mobile app. Consumers find a product of interest by visiting the website of the ...
store offering official ''Playbill'' merchandise and merchandise from most current Broadway and touring productions.
In 2006, ''Playbill'' released its first records on
Playbill Records
Playbill Records is an American record label, and subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment.
History
Playbill, a monthly publication for theatre, music and the performing arts, expanded into music through Playbill Records in June 2006. Launched in ...
, an imprint of
SonyBMG
Sony BMG Music Entertainment was an American record company owned as a 50–50 joint venture between Sony Corporation of America and Bertelsmann. The venture's successor, the revived Sony Music, is wholly owned by Sony, following their buyout ...
. Releases included
Brian Stokes Mitchell's eponymous solo album and two
compilation
Compilation may refer to:
*In computer programming, the translation of source code into object code by a compiler
**Compilation error
**Compilation unit
*Product bundling, a marketing strategy used to sell multiple products
*Compilation thesis
M ...
s of show tunes entitled ''Scene Stealers, The Men'' and ''Scene Stealers, The Women.''
''Playbill Radio'', a 24-hour Broadway-themed
internet radio
Online radio (also web radio, net radio, streaming radio, e-radio, IP radio, Internet radio) is a digital audio service transmitted via the Internet. Broadcasting on the Internet is usually referred to as webcasting since it is not transmitted ...
station featuring news,
podcast
A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosin ...
s, and a musical library of over 20,000 titles, premiered in 2007.
In 2011, ''Playbill'' launched Playbill Vault, a comprehensive online database of Broadway history. Playbill Vault provides records of Broadway productions from 1930 to the present.
Information on the website includes original and current casts, actor
head shot
A head shot or headshot is a modern (usually digital) portrait in which the focus is on the person. The term is applied usually for professional profile images on social media, images used on online dating profiles, the 'about us page' of a cor ...
s, production credits, Playbill cover images, scanned Playbill Who's Who pages, production photos, and videos.
In 2012, ''Playbill'' launched Playbill Memory Bank, a website that allowed theater-goers to track their memories of their theater attendances by entering dates they attended a show, along with information like ticket scans. The site provided information about cast members, including which performer had each particular role, for roles that may have had several replacements over the life of the show. Playbill Memory Bank shut down December 31, 2016.
''Playbill'' launched its first app, called Playbill Passport, on January 4, 2016.
In 2021, ''Playbill'' added a 'post-the-pay' rule to their job site after a campaign by On Our Team and Costume Professionals for Wage Equity called for an increased pay transparency and equity in the theater industry.
Competition with ''Stagebill''
For decades, ''Playbill'' concentrated on Broadway and Off-Broadway theaters, while ''
Stagebill'' focused on concerts, opera, and dance in
venue
Venue is the location at which an event takes place. It may refer to:
Locations
* Venue (law), the place a case is heard
* Financial trading venue, a place or system where financial transactions can occur
* Music venue, place used for a concer ...
s such as
Lincoln Center
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (also simply known as Lincoln Center) is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It has thirty indoor and outdoor facilities and is host to 5 milli ...
and
Carnegie Hall.
However, by the late 1990s, ''Playbill'' was highly profitable; ''Stagebill'' was not, losing millions of dollars annually by 1998.
To increase revenue, ''Stagebill'' entered ''Playbill''s turf. The truce was first breached in 1995, when
The Public Theater
The Public Theater is a New York City arts organization founded as the Shakespeare Workshop in 1954 by Joseph Papp, with the intention of showcasing the works of up-and-coming playwrights and performers.Epstein, Helen. ''Joe Papp: An American Li ...
quietly defected to ''Stagebill,'' and more noisily in 1997, when
Disney
The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...
contracted ''Stagebill'' for its musical ''
The Lion King
''The Lion King'' is a 1994 American animated musical drama film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures. The 32nd Disney animated feature film and the fifth produced during the Disney Renaissance ...
'' at its newly reopened
New Amsterdam Theatre
The New Amsterdam Theatre is a Broadway theater on 214 West 42nd Street, at the southern end of Times Square, in the Theater District of Manhattan in New York City. One of the oldest surviving Broadway venues, the New Amsterdam was built fro ...
.
The main point of contention in the latter case was control over advertising content: ''Playbill'' is distributed free to theaters, relying on advertising revenue that is completely under its authority, whereas Disney, per company policy, required a program without cigarette or liquor ads.
In response to ''Stagebill's'' upstart incursion, ''Playbill'' began to produce ''Showbill'', a sister publication that conformed to Disney's advertising requirements for all publications distributed in its properties.
Now with an alternative, Disney switched from ''Stagebill'' to ''Showbill'' for ''The Lion King'' late in its run at the New Amsterdam. (When the musical moved to the
Minskoff Theatre
The Minskoff Theatre is a Broadway theater on the third floor of the One Astor Plaza office building in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. Opened in 1973, it is operated by the Nederlander Organization and is named ...
, which Disney does not own, it was obligated to use ''Playbill'', as are Disney productions at other theaters.
) The
Ford Center for the Performing Arts also commissioned ''Showbill'' for its inaugural production of ''
Ragtime
Ragtime, also spelled rag-time or rag time, is a musical style that flourished from the 1890s to 1910s. Its cardinal trait is its syncopated or "ragged" rhythm. Ragtime was popularized during the early 20th century by composers such as Scott J ...
'', presumably to exclude other automakers' ads.
In a different circumstance, the producers of the Broadway
revival of ''
Cabaret
Cabaret is a form of theatrical entertainment featuring music, song, dance, recitation, or drama. The performance venue might be a pub, a casino, a hotel, a restaurant, or a nightclub with a stage for performances. The audience, often dining o ...
'' wished to maintain the atmosphere of a sleazy nightclub at its
Studio 54 venue, and insisted on handing out ''Playbill''s ''after'' the performance (instead of before). ''Playbill,'' sensing missed exposure for its advertisers, offered the show's producers "Showbill" instead.
Additionally, ''Playbill'' responded further by producing publications for classic arts venues, aggressively courting many venues that were once ''Stagebill'' clients. In the spring of 2002, ''Playbill'' signed a contract with
Carnegie Hall; this milestone was bookended by the earlier acquisition of the valuable
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera (commonly known as the Met) is an American opera company based in New York City, resident at the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, currently situated on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The company is oper ...
program and the ensuing contract with the
New York Philharmonic
The New York Philharmonic, officially the Philharmonic-Symphony Society of New York, Inc., globally known as New York Philharmonic Orchestra (NYPO) or New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra, is a symphony orchestra based in New York City. It is ...
—both tenants of ''Stagebill's'' erstwhile stronghold
Lincoln Center
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (also simply known as Lincoln Center) is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It has thirty indoor and outdoor facilities and is host to 5 milli ...
.
With the acquisition of the programs for performing arts venues, ''Playbill'' broke from its typical format and began publishing completely customized programs in the vein of ''Stagebill.''
This, coupled with continuing fiscal troubles, signaled the end of ''Stagebill'' as a publishing entity; later that year, ''Stagebill'' became
insolvent
In accounting, insolvency is the state of being unable to pay the debts, by a person or company ( debtor), at maturity; those in a state of insolvency are said to be ''insolvent''. There are two forms: cash-flow insolvency and balance-sheet i ...
after five years of head-to-head competition with ''Playbill,'' which acquired the ''Stagebill'' trademark.
Museum of Broadway
''Playbill'' is a founding member of the
Museum of Broadway
The Museum of Broadway, on West 45th Street in Times Square, is the first permanent museum dedicated to documenting the history and experience of Broadway theatre and its profound influence upon shaping Midtown Manhattan and Times Square. The mu ...
.
References
External links
*
{{Authority control
Magazines established in 1884
Magazines published in New York City
Monthly magazines published in the United States
Special Tony Award recipients
Theatre magazines