Playbill Buys Stagebill

Tradition in the theater has come to an end as the 75-year-old Stagebill has been bought by Playbill, its arch rival.

Small theaters that currently use Stagebill will likely lose their programming guide altogether as the new owners will not service theaters that are dark a good deal of the time. It is expected that the Stagebill moniker will disappear entirely from most New York venues; it has been a fixture at Lincoln Center and the Brooklyn Academy of Music. However, it is believed that the name may survive in its native Chicago,
where it is handed out at everything from the Goodman Theater, Steppenwolf Lyric Opera and the Chicago Shakespeare Theater.

Playbill, which is 118 years old, has been the dominant program guide for Broadway shows for decades.

Stagebill recently lost out to Playbill, on the rights to provide the programs for Carnegie Hall, which it had serviced for 25 years.