The Playbill

[Brian Sorgatz]

Peggy Wilkins wrote:
>Playbill: The format change is a huge improvement over the previous
>stale look and awkward text transitions.  This section was becoming
>almost a joke to me in the past couple of years: the textual
>transitions were sudden and jarring, and the paragraphs used to read
>like a bunch of press release hype strung together, with little
>thought given to coherence.  Grouping into isolated segments solves
>these problems and looks much neater.  However, it is too short; for
>instance there is no mention whatever of the pictorial features.  More
>could be made of the issue redesign here; this is the place to
>logically put info about what PLAYBOY is doing/planning in the months
>ahead, and perhaps even build reader anticipation (anyone reading this
>section probably cares).  I am also a bit perplexed about photo choice
>-- often the subject of the features is shown rather than the
>contributor; why not use smaller photos, and feature both subject and
>contributor together?  Readers look to this page to see what the
>contributors look like; we already know what the feature subjects look
>like (e.g., Mike Piazza, Frank Sinatra).  I would expand it to two
>pages to say more about the issue and to feature more contributors.
>Perhaps even introduce the new editors.

I agree with many, but not all, of Peggy's comments here.  I'm disappointed 
by the June Playbill mainly because of its utter failure to provide a sense 
of unity and cohesion in the magazine's contents.  At least earlier 
Playbills made a pretext of *trying* to do this.  The solution is to write 
better transitions, not to eliminate the transitions entirely.  I believe 
it's worth the effort, because I see the Playbill as the printed equivalent 
of an anteroom where guests leave their hats and coats and are greeted by 
the host.  Yes, I realize how old-fashioned and stuffy my analogy is, since 
few American men wear hats and coats that they check at the door anymore.  
But it fits.  Although most of us on this list, myself included, pride 
ourselves on our liberal politics, I believe we should embrace an 
*aesthetically* conservative viewpoint.  I tried to make this point 
obliquely with my earlier analogy between the preservation of PLAYBOY's 
composition and style and the preservation of historic buildings.

Brian Sorgatz