If you’ve ever been to a Broadway show, you likely still have the Playbill, that small book with articles and ads that you take as a keepsake to remember that magical moment.
Have you ever wondered who helps to make the Playbill a Playbill?
The Broadway Banner visited Playbill’s office on Seventh Avenue steps from Times Square to speak with Diep Tran, its editor in chief. The office’s front wall carries the 142-year-old magazine’s trademark yellow logo.
Tran spoke about how the Playbill works. It’s much more than the yellow-bannered evidence you’ve been to a Broadway show.
Playbill has both a Midtown office and one in Woodside.
“Our Queens office is where the printing plant is,” Tran said. “That’s where we print all of the Playbills for New York and then we put them into our little trucks and deliver them to all the venues.”
Playbills are given free to theaters
“We do physical programs and we also have Playbill.com, a daily news website for all things theater related. We also sell merch, we also run cruises. Running a media business in the year of our Lord 2026, no one makes money off of actual journalism. We make money through advertising and our cruises, our merch sales, and sponsorships. … The theaters don’t pay us anything to use Playbills. It’s a gift.”
That “gift” allows Playbill to charge for advertising, the revenue from which keeps Playbill afloat.
So, too, does merchandise sales. The Playbill Store puts the magazine’s logo on all sorts of products, from T-shirts and totes to aprons, mugs, and pet scarves. You can even buy opening-night Playbills from your favorite shows. Check out the Playbill Store here.
Tran says the best thing about being a manager is being able to make the decisions, trying to incorporate everyone’s ideas but having to say no sometimes. She has a team of 12: writers, social media, video and photographers.
Always on deadline at Playbill
Tran manages many deadlines: longer ones for print (which is updated every month) and tighter ones for the daily website, updated several times a day.
“For print, it prints about three weeks ahead of when it gets distributed. I will start planning two months ahead of time, two months out of publication for print. Online, it’s a different story, like things can come in this morning, like right now and it’ll be up on the site in like 10 minutes.”
Tran was agile with her responses, showing why she’s the editor-in-chief. She laughed when she realized she had worn a bright yellow dress to our interview, matching the place she worked perfectly.
Tran grew up thinking musicals were “cringe,” but her opinion of theater itself changed when she saw “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street,” the dark Stephen Sondheim musical that touches on some fairly scary topics. She said she enjoys musicals like this because “it expresses what we’re all really afraid to say.”
Broadway has her optimistic
While Tran might be drawn to darker material, she said Broadway shows give her reason for hope.
“Broadway right now gives me a lot of optimism, especially when you turn on the news or social media and everyone is just yelling at each other,” she said. “But when I go to a show, it reminds me of what humans can do when we are at our best.”
Did you know: Why Playbill’s logo is yellow
Diep Tran told us the Birsh family bought Playbill in 1973 and chose the trademark yellow logo for a basic business reason: Yellow was the least expensive color.
Dasiel DeJesus is a senior at United Charter High School for the Humanities in the Bronx.
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