The Playbill Broadway Yearbook 2011 - 2012 Season: 8th Annual Edition. Edited by Robert Viagas. Published by Applause/Playbill Books. Hardcover, 400 pages.
This edition of the annual Playbill Broadway Yearbook includes chapters on 70 Broadway shows, which is every show that ran during the season - not just such new shows as Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, Once, Newsies, Nice Work If You Can Get It, and One Man, Two Guvnors, but the long-running ones from seasons past, such as Phantom of the Opera, The Book of Mormon, and Wicked. In addition to headshots of all the actors who appeared in Playbill, the book has photos of producers, writers, designers, stage managers, stagehands, musicians, ushers - even Leonardo, the "SM" fish who is the backstage mascot at Jersey Boys. The roster tops 10,000 names.
Many of the people who work on Broadway keep scrapbooks of their experiences: photos, signed posters, ticket stubs, and, of course the Playbills. These are treasured keepsakes, something to be savored over a lifetime, and then passed on to friends and descendants. Playbill Books, a division of the iconic 128-year-old company that designs the programs for every show on Broadway, has expanded this idea into an annual project that has become a Broadway institution: The Playbill Broadway Yearbook. Taking the form of a high school or college yearbook, the eighth edition is packed with photos (more than 4,000 of them, many in color) and memorabilia from the entire 2011-2012 Broadway season. The Broadway shows featured in this edition are:
The Addams Family
Anything Goes
Arcadia
Baby It's You!
Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo
Billy Elliot, The Musical
Bonnie & Clyde
The Book of Mormon
Born Yesterday
Catch Me If You Can
Chicago
Chinglish
Clybourne Park
The Columnist
Death of a Salesman
Don't Dress for Dinner
End of the Rainbow
An Evening with Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin
Evita
Follies
The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess
Ghetto Klown
Ghost The Musical
Godspell
Gore Vidal's The Best Man
Hair
The House of Blue Leaves
How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying
Hugh Jackman Back on Broadway
The Importance of Being Earnest
Jersey Boys
Jerusalem
Jesus Christ Superstar
Leap of Faith
The Lion King
The Lyons
Lysistrata Jones
Magic/Bird
Mamma Mia!
Man and Boy
Mary Poppins
Master Class
Memphis
Million Dollar Quartet
The Motherf**ker with the Hat
The Mountaintop
Newsies
Nice Work If You Can Get It
The Normal Heart
On a Clear Day You Can See Forever
Once
One Man, Two Guvnors
Other Desert Cities
The People in the Picture
Peter and the Starcatcher
The Phantom of the Opera
Priscilla Queen of the Desert
Private Lives
Rain: Tribute to the Beatles on Broadway
Relatively Speaking
The Road to Mecca
Rock of Ages
Seminar
Shatner's World:We Just Live in It
Sister Act
Spider-Man:Turn Off the Dark
Stick Fly
A Streetcar Named Desire
Venus in Fur
War Horse
Wicked
Wit