I have a question regarding opening night playbills. Having never attend an opening night I do collect these playbills and have noticed some variations among them. Firstly some of them have no round sticker on the cover and just say opening night on the inside. Recently having been at the flea market I noticed some that have the silver round sticker on the upper right corner and some that have it on the bottom right corner. I managed to buy three autographed Springsteen playbills from his opening night at the flea market. One of them had no sticker the other one had a sticker upper right and the third one bottom right corner. Can someone enlighten me as to why there are three different versions. I also noticed that the ones that are sold at playbill.com usually have the stickers on them .....are these repressings?? Do they sometimes have the sticker versions at the actual opening night or are these always repressings that are not available at the actual opening night show? If someone can please enlighten me. Also wondering when it comes to the value are they equally worth the same whether or not they have a sticker or not? Thanks
The stickers are optional on the producers' part --- but they need to pay extra for them (Playbill provides them). Many producers do not want to pay the added expense (a few hundred dollars). I'm guessing that the ones that Playbill sells have the stickers on them so they "look" more valuable. As far as what they're actually "worth" --- like any theatre memorabilia it's what whatever someone is willing to pay for it.
The ushers put the silver foil opening night stickers on the Playbills, so it's wherever they decide to stick them (they're usually told where to do it but when you have to put stickers on 1000 Playbills you probably don't always put them in the same place.) Shows can pay extra to have Playbill print a special Opening Night edition, most shows don't, they'll just reprint the title page and put that in as an insert if there were any last minute changes.
I have been to 14 opening nights on Broadway, and not once did any of the Playbills have an opening night sticker on the cover. The title page always has a header stating "Opening Night" and the date, This is printed in the entire week's shipment of Playbills, and is not exclusively distributed on opening night. Only once during those 14 times was there a separate insert for the title page, and that was because an additional producer was being credited specifically for opening night (I can't remember the show, but it was fairly recent).
Fosse76 said: "I have been to 14 opening nights on Broadway, and not once did any of the Playbills have an opening night sticker on the cover. The title page always hasa header stating "Opening Night" and the date, This is printed in the entire week's shipment of Playbills, and is not exclusively distributed on opening night. Only once during those 14 times was there a separate insert for the title page, and that was because an additional producer was being credited specifically for opening night (I can't remember the show, but it was fairly recent)."
Guess you just haven't been to the "right" openings. They are still used occasionally -- but not as frequently as they used to be.
The "OPENING NIGHT: (DATE OF OPENING)" Playbills are often handed out at the theatre during press nights (week before through week after). Some producers, as many have mentioned, opt to put the Playbill opening night sticker for a fee.
Two shows come to mind that did something different... Red with Molina and Redmayne had gold stickers with the logo of the show and opening night date; Priscilla, Queen of the Desert had the word PRISCILLA bedazzled in pink. I love those touches.
"When the audience comes in, it changes the temperature of what you've written." -Stephen Sondheim
WayTooBroadway said: "The "OPENING NIGHT: (DATE OF OPENING)" Playbills are often handed out at the theatre during press nights (week before through week after)."
Playbills are ordered by the week, so the title page will have the OPENING NIGHT language for the week of the opening. Depending on what night of the week the opening is held, the press perfs may overlap with the ON playbill. (And sometimes you'll get them in the following week, or won't get them in the beginning of the week, if they're using up extras from the previous week)
I think it might be up to the specific production. I work at a theater where we NEVER have opening night playbills or anything, but over the summer, for two productions the playbills had stickers on them! I’d never seen that before.
value... depends on the person. From what I've seen, many favour ones with stickers as they like to display playbills and it's visible. There's certainly some who feel the non-stickered ones are more authentic, as they were given out by the theatre vs from playbill.com (Not sure how that shakes out if the theatre is giving out stickered ones). Lots just want all their opening night playbills to be one or the other
joined:4/20/14
joined:
4/20/14
Posted: 10/4/18 at 1:45pm