Editor | Diep Tran |
---|---|
Categories | Theatre |
Frequency | Monthly |
Total circulation (2012) | 4,073,680 |
First issue | 1884; New Series 1982 |
Company | TotalTheater |
Country | United States |
Based in | New York City |
Language | English |
Website | www |
ISSN | 0551-0678 |
OCLC | 1264051597 |
Playbill is an American monthly magazine for theatergoers. Although there is a subscription issue available for home delivery, 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[ which? ] in New York City. The magazine is now used at nearly every Broadway theatre as well as many Off-Broadway productions. Outside New York City, Playbill is used at theaters throughout the United States. As of September 2012, [update] its circulation was 4,073,680. [1]
What is known today as Playbill started in 1884, when Frank Vance Strauss founded the New York Theatre Program Corporation [2] 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. [3] The new format proved popular with theatergoers, who started to collect playbills as souvenirs; [3] 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. [4]
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. [3] [5] 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. [4] In 1934–35, the name The Playbill made its first appearance on the cover [5] 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 [4] and the publication as it is known today became Playbill in 1957, under then-owner Gilman Kraft. [3] [6]
Each issue features articles focusing on actors, new plays, musicals, and special attractions. This "wraparound" section is the same for all Playbills at all venues each month. Within this wraparound, the Playbill contains listings, photos, and biographies of the cast; 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. [7] 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 within the magazine. This is, however, not the case for every opening night playbill: there are many in circulation that do not 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.
The Playbill banner has changed the yellow to another color on rare occasions in its history:
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, 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 store offering official Playbill merchandise and merchandise from most current Broadway and touring productions.
In 2006, Playbill released its first records on Playbill Records, an imprint of SonyBMG. Releases included Brian Stokes Mitchell's eponymous solo album and two compilations of show tunes entitled Scene Stealers, The Men and Scene Stealers, The Women.
Playbill Radio, a 24-hour Broadway-themed internet radio station featuring news, podcasts, 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. [9] Information on the website includes original and current casts, actor head shots, 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. [10]
Playbill launched its first app, called Playbill Passport, on January 4, 2016. [11]
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. [12] [13]
For decades, Playbill concentrated on Broadway and Off-Broadway theaters, while Stagebill focused on concerts, opera, and dance in venues such as Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall. [14] However, by the late 1990s, Playbill was highly profitable; Stagebill was not, losing millions of dollars annually by 1998. [15] To increase revenue, Stagebill entered Playbill's turf. The truce was first breached in 1995, when The Public Theater quietly defected to Stagebill, and more noisily in 1997, when Disney contracted Stagebill for its musical The Lion King at its newly reopened New Amsterdam Theatre. [16] 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. [17]
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. [14] 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, which Disney does not own, it was obligated to use Playbill, as are Disney productions at other theaters. [14] ) The Ford Center for the Performing Arts also commissioned Showbill for its inaugural production of Ragtime , presumably to exclude other automakers' ads. [14] In a different circumstance, the producers of the Broadway revival of Cabaret wished to maintain the atmosphere of a sleazy nightclub at its Studio 54 venue, and insisted on handing out Playbills after the performance (instead of before). Playbill, sensing missed exposure for its advertisers, offered the show's producers "Showbill" instead. [18]
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 program and the ensuing contract with the New York Philharmonic—both tenants of Stagebill's erstwhile stronghold Lincoln Center. [16] 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. [17] This, coupled with continuing fiscal troubles, signaled the end of Stagebill as a publishing entity; later that year, Stagebill became insolvent after five years of head-to-head competition with Playbill, which acquired the Stagebill trademark. [19]
Playbill is a founding member of the Museum of Broadway. [20]
Broadway theatre, or Broadway, is a theatre genre that consists of the theatrical performances presented in 41 professional theaters, each with 500 or more seats, in the Theater District and Lincoln Center along Broadway, in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Broadway and London's West End together represent the highest commercial level of live theater in the English-speaking world.
Judy Kuhn is an American actress, singer and activist, known for her work in musical theatre. A four-time Tony Award nominee, she has released four studio albums and sang the title role in the 1995 film Pocahontas, including her rendition of the song "Colors of the Wind", which won its composers the Academy Award for Best Original Song.
The New Amsterdam Theatre is a Broadway theater at 214 West 42nd Street, at the southern end of Times Square, in the Theater District of Manhattan in New York City. One of the first Broadway venues to open in the Times Square neighborhood, the New Amsterdam was built from 1902 to 1903 to designs by Herts & Tallant. The theater is operated by Disney Theatrical Productions and has 1,702 seats across three levels. Both the Beaux-Arts exterior and the Art Nouveau interior of the building are New York City landmarks, and the building is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Disney Theatrical Productions Limited (DTP), also known as Disney on Broadway, is the stageplay and musical production company of the Disney Theatrical Group, a subsidiary of Disney Entertainment, a major division and business unit of The Walt Disney Company.
Christian Dominique Borle is an American actor and singer. He is a two-time Tony Award winner for his roles as Black Stache in Peter and the Starcatcher and as William Shakespeare in Something Rotten! Borle also originated the roles of Prince Herbert, et al. in Spamalot, Emmett in Legally Blonde, and Joe in Some Like It Hot on Broadway, each of which earned him a Tony nomination. He starred as Marvin in the 2016 Broadway revival of Falsettos. He also starred as Tom Levitt on the NBC musical-drama television series Smash and Vox in the adult animated black comedy musical series Hazbin Hotel.
The Nederlander Theatre is a Broadway theater at 208 West 41st Street in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. Opened in 1921, it was designed by William Neil Smith for theatrical operator Walter C. Jordan. It has around 1,235 seats across two levels and is operated by the Nederlander Organization. Since 1980, it has been named for American theater impresario David Tobias Nederlander, father of theatrical producer James M. Nederlander. It is the southernmost Broadway theater in the Theater District.
The Belasco Theatre is a Broadway theater at 111 West 44th Street, between Seventh Avenue and Sixth Avenue, in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. Originally known as the Stuyvesant Theatre, it was built in 1907 and designed by architect George Keister for impresario David Belasco. The Belasco Theatre has 1,016 seats across three levels and has been operated by The Shubert Organization since 1948. Both the facade and interior of the theater are New York City landmarks.
Jason Raize Rothenberg, known professionally as Jason Raize, was an American actor, singer, and former Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Environment Programme. He was best known for his roles as the adult Simba in the Broadway stage musical version of The Lion King and the voice of Denahi in the animated Disney film Brother Bear.
Brian d'Arcy James is an American actor and musician. He is known primarily for his Broadway roles, including Shrek in Shrek the Musical, Nick Bottom in Something Rotten!, King George III in Hamilton, and The Baker in Into the Woods. He has received five Tony Award nominations for his work. On-screen, he is known for his recurring role as Andy Baker on the Netflix series 13 Reasons Why, Officer Krupke in West Side Story, and reporter Matt Carroll in Spotlight.
John Dossett is an American actor and singer.
Alice Ripley is an American actress, singer, songwriter and mixed media artist. She is known, in particular, for her various roles on Broadway in musicals, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Next to Normal and Side Show. She most recently played three roles in the short-lived Broadway musical, American Psycho. Alice Ripley has released albums with her band, RIPLEY, including the single, "Beautiful Eyes", released in February 2012. She also performs as a solo artist, while in February 2011 she released Alice Ripley Daily Practice, Volume 1, a stripped-down collection of acoustic rock covers.
The Broadway League, formerly the League of American Theatres and Producers and League of New York Theatres and Producers, is the national trade association for the Broadway theatre industry based in New York City. Its members include theatre owners and operators, producers, presenters, and general managers in New York and more than 250 other North American cities, as well as suppliers of goods and services to the theatre industry.
Marcy Heisler is a musical theater lyricist and performer. As a performer, she has performed at Carnegie Hall, Birdland, and numerous other venues throughout the United States and Canada. Heisler was nominated for the 2009 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Lyrics for Dear Edwina.
Jonathan Drew Groff is an American actor and singer. Known for his performances on stage and screen, he has received several awards including a Tony Award and a Grammy Award as well as a nomination for a Primetime Emmy Award.
Lisa Brescia is an American musical theatre actress who has performed as lead and understudy in several Broadway shows. Raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, she went on to pursue acting and graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. She taught Acting I and IV at Missouri State University and is now set to be the head of the Musical Theatre department at Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri.
Thomas Robert Kitt is an American composer, conductor, orchestrator, and musician. For his score for the musical Next to Normal, he shared the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Drama with Brian Yorkey. He has also won two Tony Awards and an Outer Critics Circle Award for Next to Normal, as well as Tony and Outer Critics Circle nominations for If/Then and SpongeBob SquarePants. He has been nominated for eight Drama Desk Awards, winning one, and a Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album for Jagged Little Pill in 2021.
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Stagebill was a monthly U.S. magazine for theatregoers. Most copies of the publication were printed for particular productions and distributed at the door as the show's program. It was launched as a direct rival to the highly successful monthly Playbill. But after five years of head-to-head competition with Playbill, Stagebill became insolvent and was acquired by its rival which also kept the Stagebill trademark.