Redesigning History: How Broadway Musical Playbill Covers Impact Audience’s Perception of History

Drawing on the expression “to bill it like a circus” built upon P.T. Barnum’s spectacle of visuals, on-site visual advertisements became the key to the success of theaters (Fuller-Seeley, 2012). With Broadway as the heart of New York City’s theater and entertainment industry, one of the key strategies for visual advertisements among Broadway shows is the playbill cover. Playbill covers do not only serve as a marketing tactic but become a prized possession and form of memorabilia for theater viewers. Since many observers often associate the playbill cover as the main logo of the show, the primary purpose of this study is to understand how Broadway musical playbill covers, specifically those that encompass history, have an emotional impact on viewers and their perception of history. A visual analysis of Broadway musicals ranging from 2000 to 2025 was conducted through compiling and filtering musicals from Playbill.com to include only those focused on historical events or figures. From there, 109 musicals were collected and numbered, and five were randomly selected using the random number generator found at Random.org. The research analyzed the playbill covers specifically for recurring shapes, colors, and font style with an emphasis on what symbolic meaning could be extracted. The playbill covers exhibited circular shapes with warm colors that, previously found by Plass et. all (2014), can induce positive emotions and stronger recall of the brand. Additionally, the specific shapes of circles, rectangles, and lines along with contrast of colors on the playbill covers accurately depicted the historical contexts of the show through symbolic interpretation and visual sociology. Lastly, large, geometric fonts on the playbill covers create clear visuals that produce confidence about the show and its message within the observer.