What does Playbill mean?
Playbill is the printed program distributed to theater audiences — containing the production’s cast list, creative team credits, production notes, cast biographies, and advertisements. The Playbill brand is so closely associated with Broadway and major American theater that the term is used generically to describe any theatrical program. For performers, a Playbill credit is a professional documentation of their theatrical work and a physical memento of their performance experience.
Example:The child actor’s name appeared in the Playbill for the first time during her Broadway debut — a milestone she and her family marked by saving multiple copies of the program, recognizing it as a permanent record of her first major theatrical achievement.
Example: The theater teacher collected Playbills from every production she attended, building a library that served as both a historical record of her theatrical experiences and a reference document for students researching the careers of performers they admired.
Did you know?
Playbill, Inc. has been publishing theatrical programs since 1884, making it one of the oldest continuously operating entertainment publishing businesses in the United States. The iconic yellow-bordered Playbill format has been a constant presence in American theater for so long that it has become inseparable from the theatrical experience itself — a cultural artifact that audiences collect as mementos.
You can also find “Playbill” and related terms in this category: Theater Acting.
