"Live in Living Color" ...except on your Playbill

Hi everyone! I am BACK! I want to start off my revival of this blog with a short rant regarding one of my Broadway pet peeves.

I am an avid Playbill collector. I have four Playbill binders plus a few shoeboxes of Playbills from Broadway, National Tour, and regional productions stashed under my bed. I know, I know... NERD ALERT!!! I love and am very proud of my Playbill collection.

What I can't stand, however, is walking into a Broadway show and being handed a black & white Playbill.

It REALLY shouldn't be a big deal. In the grand scheme of life, it's not a big deal. This is for sure classified as a first-world problem. I just think that when Broadway ticket prices are higher than they've ever been, can't the theatre spring the extra cash to print the cover design in color? The Playbill banner at the top is always yellow (or rainbow in June for Pride Month), so why can't the rest of the cover be?

To drive my point home, let's take a look at some beautiful Playbill designs that I should have received, when instead I got their less-than-brilliant black & white counterparts:

Let's get it together, Broadway! Let the Playbill collectors have some more color in our lives!

MEMPHIS

ANYTHING GOES

BIG FISH

ANASTASIA

HOLIDAY INN

CINDERELLA

Comments

REVIEW: Finding Neverland National Tour

photo by Jeremy Daniel I could not have been more excited when I learned that Finding Neverland would finally be launching a national tour. I saw the show twice on Broadway starring Matthew Morrison, Kelsey Grammar, and Laura Michelle Kelly, and I completely fell in love with the breathtaking yet underrated musical. At long last, the tour reached the National Theatre in Washington, DC, and I was so excited to score cheap tickets! I had some concerns about seeing Finding Neverland this time around. Despite the glowing reviews from my friends who had seen it earlier in the week, the Washington Post completely slammed the production. The Post's review mainly blamed the tour's shortcomings on being a non-equity tour. In summary, an actor who is non-equity has not yet worked their way into the Actor's Equity Association (the actor's union, in laymen's terms). Non-equity actors are not protected by the AEA regulations, and therefore are not obligated to be paid a ...

Ten Years of Something to Believe In: My Newsies Story

I have wanted to write about Newsies since the inception of this blog . Now that we are a couple days away from the 10th anniversary of Newsies ' opening night on Broadway, I wanted to pay homage to this underdog show that I love. I want to share my Newsies story in full for the first time. I want to dive into the good and the not-so-good and how my relationship with Newsies has evolved and matured over the last ten years. Over the years I have changed so much, but my love for this show has remained. Whew, I'm already tearing up a little bit. I just want to express gratitude so here goes nothin'. Newsies first appeared on my radar on Thanksgiving Day 2011 when the Paper Mill cast performed in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. By the end of the performance I was sold, and Newsies went on my list as a show I just had to see. Fast forward to April 2012 and I was en route to NYC on a school-sponsored trip, which incl...

Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Drains Your Savings?

I, like most of the theatre world, am completely captivated by the new Broadway superhit Hamilton . I have listened to the cast recording on repeat nonstop for the last several months. I know every word to every song. The cast members have all become celebrities in my house. I am also extremely lucky to have seen Hamilton, and it completely blew me away and exceeded every expectation. I also luckily only paid $57 for my ticket. That sentence usually is greeted with gasps, dropped jaws, and “HOOOOOWWWW?!” That kind of price for this show is completely unheard of these days. If you buy a Hamilton ticket face value, the cheapest you can get is $139. StubHub and Ticketmaster Resale is filled with people re-selling their tickets for as much as $1,500 or more PER TICKET. Why are people doing this? Because people are so desperate to see the show that they will pay 10x the original ticket cost to see it! This alone is where our problem lies and created the whole reason why I am ...

The Theatre Enthusiast

Search This Blog