Playbills Project

The Philadelphia Playbills Project (PPP) takes historic playbills from the archives of Penn Libraries’ collections at the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, and turns them into data everyone can use to learn about the history of performance in America’s oldest theaters. Help them preserve our theatrical history.

How do I get started? Just go to the Philadelphia Playbills website and start transcribing right now.  

How much time will this take? This is a low time commitment. Spend as much time as you want, one hour or many. You will be helping these national treasures to be searchable and discoverable by all!

How do I expand this narrative arc? If acting or playwriting are in your narrative arc, consider building on this interest with one of the following:

• Help the Yale Theatre History project capture their historical playbills too.

• Attend a performance arts summer camp to explore and learn about the world of theatre and acting or enroll in a local playwriting workshop for teens like this Writopia Playwriting Workshop

• Become involved in school and community theatre, either as an actor, director or backstage.

• Organize a local Theatre Group for unserved youth or seniors which meets regularly to attend a play (or movie of a play.)

Hot Tip: Completing a Playbills Project or attending a summer program is a great start, but the real impact will be greater if you lead your own impact project such as the Theatre Group Organizer.