Get a bio from every member of the production. To make your job easier, you may want to ask each of the members of the company--director and producer included--to write up their own short bio. A bio should be one paragraph, describing their career in the theatre. A little personal information is fine, but the info should pertain mainly to the subject at hand. If you like, you can pass out a form for the company members to fill out that lets them list a couple pieces of personal information (where they were born, where they went to school), in addition to their stage experience. Writing the bios yourself is helpful if you have limited space in the playbill, and you want all of the bios to have a uniform look. Be sure to let the cast and crew read a proof of the playbill before you publish it. Getting an important piece of someones history wrong can be very insulting.
Contact vendors for advertising. Putting together a playbill for a show that is eye-catching and professional looking can be expensive. A great resource for advertising is your local business community. Don't be shy! Be bold and cold-call businesses in the area that are near the theatre that might benefit from having an advertisement in the playbill. If there's a restaurant near the theatre, call the establishment and express to them the opportunity to boost their business by advertising in your playbill and possibly garnering some of your audience for a post-show meal. Once you put together a budget for how much the printing costs of your playbill will be, divide the free sections of your playbill into sections that will cost different amounts of money, based on where they are in the playbill and how big they are. This way, the playbill may end up costing you nothing, leaving your real budget for the show itself!
Design the playbill and place the pictures. To put together what is known as a "proof" copy, you will need a computer with some kind of word-processing software and a color printer with the ability to print out photos. There are a lot of computer programs out there that let you put together and edit theatre programs and playbills entirely on your computer. If you have one of those programs, that's great--use it. However, if you don't, those computer programs are very costly and this method is much less expensive and still yields an attractive result. If you have contacted businesses, have them send their advertisements over to your computer via email attachment. A .jpg file is the most universal and will be high enough quality for what you are trying to do. Open the files and print them out using high-qrade, color-photo quality printer paper. Do the same with any pictures you want to include of the cast. Print the cover art in the same way. Now, begin laying out the program. Remember, when you are designing the pages, you are using 8 1/2" by 11" paper that will be folded in half to make a 5 1/2" by 8 1/2" program. This will take some visualization on your part. The first page you are putting together will actually be the cover page, the first inside page, the last inside page and the back cover. Cut the pictures with a straight razor and a ruler to ensure straight and even edges. Place the pictures on each page as you picture them. If everything works for you, dab the backs of each picture with the glue stick and gently glue into place. Once the graphics are down, it's time to glue in the text.
Print out the text and glue in the bios. Measure how large the columns are that you have designed for your bios. On your word-processing program, there should be a rule bar in inches at the top of the screen. You can manually change the margins of your print by clicking and dragging the margin stop over to the desired number of inches. Many programs have a "columns" option in their "tools" section. You can enter the exact size of the column you want, and the program will automatically reformat the text. You may need to cut and paste the text into the new columns, but this should work. Print, place and paste the text the same way you did with the photos.
Copy the proof. Once you let the cast and crew review the proof, take it to a reputable copy center that has a high quality laser-color copier. Don't be afraid of over-explaining yourself to them. This is your product, and you want it done the right way. If you want, write down the instructions of what exactly you want and how you want the playbills to look. Most copy centers will fold and staple for a little extra. If you have had the programs paid for by advertising, this may be a time saver that is worth a little extra cash. When you pick up the finished programs, ALWAYS look through one of the playbills before paying for them. If they have done something wrong, it is your right as a customer to insist on them making it right before you pay.
Design the playbill and place the pictures. To put together what is known as a "proof" copy, you will need a computer with some kind of word processing software, and a color printer with the ability to print out photos. There are a lot of computer programs out there that let you put together and edit theatre programs and playbills entirely on your computer. If you have one of those programs, that's great! Use it. However, if you don't, those computer programs are very costly and this method is much less expensive and still yields an attractive result. If you have contacted businesses, have them send their advertisements over to your computer via email attachment. A .jpg file is the most universal, and for your purposes will be high enough quality for what you are trying to do. Open the files and print them out using high qrade, color-photo quality printer paper. Do the same with any pictures you want to include of the cast. Print the cover art in the same way. Now, begin laying out the program. Remember, when you are designing the pages, you are using 8 1/2" by 11" paper that will be folded in half to make a 5 1/2" by 8 1/2" program. This will take some visualization on your part. The first page you are putting together will actually be the cover page, the first inside page, the last inside page, and the back cover. Cut the pictures with a straight razor and a ruler to ensure straight and even edges. Place the pictures on each page as you picture them. If everything works for you, dab the backs of each picture with the glue stick and gently glue into place. Once the graphics are down, it's time to glue in the text.