Series I: American Playbills with Dates

The American Playbills Collection contains over 4,000 programs for American theatre productions in states other than Arizona from 1871-2014. The majority of them are from professional theatre productions in New York City. Also included are programs from Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Washington DC, Boston, and several other cities. Some have ticket stubs, autographs, and fliers for other productions.

This collection is divided into three series: Series I: American Playbills with Dates; Series II: American Playbills without Dates; Series III: Newspaper Program Advertisements.

Series I is arranged first by year (1888-2014), then alphabetically by the title of the play. Also listed is the name of the theatre where the show was performed or the company title and the city.

Series II, undated, is arranged alphabetically by the title of the play.

Series III, 1871-1901, 1930-1931, is arranged first by year, then alphabetically by the title of the play. These playbill listings were printed in newspapers and popular periodicals of the time and list the cast, production and artistic team names, number of acts, and sometimes a brief plot summary.