Playbill: The Ultimate Souvenir

In my last post, I shared my best find of the day at the BC/EFA Flea Market: a Funny Girl Playbill featuring a young Barbra Streisand from October 1964. Playbills are an essential part of the theater-going experience and one of my favorite parts of going to see shows. They are the ultimate souvenirs, and best of all, they’re free! I love opening a Playbill and reading about the people who make shows come to life. I keep all my Playbills to remind me of seeing the show long after my night at the theater has passed, and I cherish my ever-growing collection.



Part of my Playbill Collection. Beauty and the Beast was my first Broadway show!

Interestingly enough, I also find myself using Playbills to gauge a theatergoer’s reaction to the show he or she has just seen. When the shows end and hundreds of Playbill-carrying audience members converge upon Times Square, I love to watch their reaction to what they have just witnessed. Most often, it is the extremely animated or the most sullen that draw my attention. I immediately look at the Playbill they are carrying to determine which show caused their reaction.

Playbills have been an institution in the theater industry since the early beginnings of Broadway. They were first printed for one theater in 1884 but later were printed for every show on the Great White Way. What amazes me most about the Playbill is how little it has actually changed.

Funny Girl 1964  - Peter and the Starcatcher 2012

The most obvious difference, of course, is its outward appearance. Older Playbills are slightly larger than their modern counterparts, and they’re entirely in black and white. Modern Playbills are slightly shorter and narrower and are printed in color. Since the newer Playbills are smaller, they also have fewer pages; the older ones are over sixty pages long, including an amazing amount of advertisements!

However, the bones of the Playbill remain intact. The dining guide and Theater Quiz have been in Playbills for decades, and there are several articles about the trends and stars of Broadway at the time. Of course, every Playbill places the information about the show right in the center. These include the standard title page, cast list, a list of musical numbers, and descriptions of the scenes and songs in the show. The “Who’s Who in the Cast” is still one of the most important features in both, but the way it’s written has really changed over the past forty years or so. Modern biographies list an actor’s previous acting credits and other information in short, choppy phrases that sometimes have a splash of personality. Biographies written in the 1960s are longer and have a more formal tone.

Barbra Streisand’s biography combines a little bit of both styles. It’s long and written in complete sentences, but her tone and language is witty and playful. I think she probably had a lot of fun writing her bio, and it shows:

For theater enthusiasts like me, the Playbill is a little piece of history that reawakens so many wonderful memories. Each time I look through my collection, I recall the most special moments and incredible performances of the many shows I’ve seen. Additionally, to hold and read a Playbill from a show from long before I was born allows me to learn more about the industry I love. So the next time you see a Broadway show, don’t throw away your Playbills; you never know what kind of memories they’ll evoke!

If you want to see Playbills both old and new, check out www.playbillvault.com. It’s a great website that has information on hundreds of shows and thousands of performers including pictures, scans of Playbill images, and links to more information about these shows.