Check here for answers to your questions about Playbill VIP. Just click on your question to reveal the answer below.
If you are involved in a school or amateur production with 8 or fewer performances, you can use this site to create a Virtual Playbill® and make a printable copy.
Playbill VIP was created as a tool for schools and amateur productions. Professional organizations wishing to distribute Playbills for their productions should contact Playbill at 525 Seventh Ave., Suite 1801, New York, NY 10018 or call 212-557-5757.
Setting up and sharing your VIP is free of charge. But in order to print your VIP, there will be $50 charge which is donated to charity.
The Producer of a production is the person who is in charge of administrative decisions for the show. Usually this is the person who arranged for the rights to perform the show.
Since you are creating a Playbill representing your organization's production, a mentor is needed to sign off on your creation. The mentor can choose his or her level involvement as the VIP is being set up, from minimal to page-by-page oversight.
If the virtual Playbill you are creating will be the designated program for your production, select Official VIP. Choosing this option will require a representative from the producing organization (a drama teacher or official at a school, for example) to give approval to you building the VIP; that person may also choose to sign off on every section of the VIP before it is made available to the public. A Personal VIP can be built without the user requiring any oversight or permissions from another individual.
When you are entering the production details for your Playbill, you will be required to confirm that you have obtained the necessary waivers for any photos or personal information posted to the document.
All you need to start creating your VIP is the basic information about your show. As long as you know the name, date and location of the production you have everything you need to get started.
Unfortunately, at this time, you can only post YouTube videos.
No - only the Cover section is mandatory. You can use all, some, or none of the other sections (Billing page, Cast, Who's Who, etc.)
You can just skip the Back Page section and use the End Notes section to compose your back page.
No. You will build your Playbill section by section, starting with the Cover section. After you have finished editing a section, saved your work and are in Preview mode, you have the option of making the section public. Because it can take a lot of time creating a Playbill cover-to-cover, we thought our users would prefer to make public each section as they are completed. We provide sharing tools so you can let friends, family and fellow cast members know each time a new section is completed and made public.
This website doesn't require you know image dimensions or pre-crop your images but in case you want to know the minimum recommended sizes, here they are:
Low Resolution (Online Viewing Only) Image Dimensions
SAVE THE DATE:
Width: 145 pixels
Height: 185 pixels
COVER:
Width: 530 pixels
Height: 702 pixels
HEADSHOT:
134x134 pixels
FULL SIZE PHOTO/AD:
Width: 530 pixels
Height: 794 pixels
1/2 SIZE PHOTO/AD:
Width: 530 pixels
Height: 387 pixels
1/4 SIZE PHOTO/AD:
Width: 255 pixels
Height: 387 pixels
BACK PAGE:
Width: 530 pixels
Height: 880 pixels
Archiving a Playbill removes it from searches on our site and if it's displayed as a link on the home page, removes it from display there.
If you have multiple actors playing the same role, you can enter the full name of the one actor in the First Name field with a “/” at the end and the full name of the other actor in the Last Name field. For instance, you can put “John Smith/” In the First Name Field and “Jack Murphy” in the Last Name field. It will appear on your “Cast” page as: Scarecrow............... John Smith / Jack Murphy. Please note that doing so will prevent the “Who’s Who” section from displaying the cast names individually so we recommend you delete the individual “Who’s Who” entries and use the Add Optional Filler Content tool to enter Who’s Who entries.
Playbill does not allow you to use the Playbill logo if you’re not using the PlaybillVIP site to create your program.
You can save time entering and formatting the writer credits on the billing page and the song lists of your musicals by using our Playbill Express Production data.
You can only turn off sections, not individual pages. To turn off a section, deselect the "Yes. Make this page public" checkbox. Another way to turn off a section is by editing the section and saving it (once you start editing a section, we require you to make the section public again.)
In some sections that are text-based (Billing, Acknowledgements, End Notes), you can just enter any text content your audience might find of interest, like upcoming productions, special notices, etc. For other sections (Songs, Who's Who, Photos, Video and Ads), we offer a tool to add additional text. Click "+ Add Optional Filler Content" which opens a text editor for you to add additional notes. See the combination of content (photos, video, songs, etc.) with the filler text by switching to Preview mode.
Printing your VIP is a very simple process. When you have completed your VIP, click the "Enable Print" button available on your Dashboard or just about any Preview or Edit page of your document. There will be a $50 charge for the use of the Playbill Trademark, with net proceeds going to charity.
Net proceeds from the $50 charge for generating a PDF of your Playbill are Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, The Actors Fund and UNICEF.
When you’re ready to print, click the Make This Public button on your “Cover” Page first. The Enable PDF button will appear toward the top right corner of the screen located below the yellow “Need Help?” button. When you click the “Enable PDF” button, a screen will pop up that will allow you to pay the trademark licensing fee.
The standard Playbill size is approximately an 8.5" x 11" paper folded laterally into 4 pages, so if you plan on making a printout of your VIP, aim to create document that is a multiple of 4 (eg. 8, 12, 16 or 20 pages).
You will need to generate a PDF of your online VIP. Playbill charges a $50 trademark licensing fee, with net proceeds being donated to 3 charities. You can then send the PDF to a commercial printer or a popular service bureau such as Kinkos or Staples.
There is no charge for going back and editing your VIP. You may edit it as often as you’d like and generate a PDF after each revision.
If you are positive your credit card went through the first time and you are still being asked to pay again, please contact us at support@playbill.com. Please include a copy of your receipt and the email address that you used to sign up for your account.
Please make sure any image that you add is in JPEG, GIF, or PNG format and is under 10 MB. You cannot upload PDF, TXT, or word documents to the Cover, Who’s Who, Crew’s Who’s Who, Photos, Ads, or Back page sections.
In the “Who’s Who” section when add your bio, check the “Extend Bio” box. That will increase the character count limit to 1,000. However, keep in mind that you won’t be able to fit as many bios on one page. The maximum number of bios you can fit on a page is 5. If you exceed the 400 character count, less than 5 bios will fit on the page.