The journey of a Broadway career begins with a single step. Or rather, a single Playbill. To celebrate Playbill’s 140th anniversary, we asked some of Broadway’s best and brightest to reflect on the first time they appeared in a Playbill, and what that milestone meant to them.
For instance, Tony Award winner Billy Porter had an interesting factoid about his first Playbill credit, which was Miss Saigon in 1991: "It was a dream come true. And my name was W. Ellis Porter at the time. Because somebody else was Billy Porter in Actors’ Equity, and they didn’t let me have the name for a while. But I got it back. I got my name back!”
See reflections from Porter, Sarah Paulson, Joy Woods, and many more artists in the video above.
And for the entire month of October, don't forget to drop by a Broadway theatre to pick up a special Legacy Playbill. Playbill has partnered with every show on Broadway (and Off-Broadway's Little Shop of Horrors) to create four special retro-inspired Playbill covers, which are being distributed to audiences free of charge. Click here to see all of the available Legacy covers. We hope the special four-part nature of these covers encourages you to go to the theatre to get one, strike up a conversation with a stranger to trade covers, and take the time to thank the ushers who hand them out. If you want to get all the designs of a particular show, visit PlaybillStore.com to purchase a poster of a show's collection, with proceeds going to Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.