Playbills from the collection of the National Museum of Archaeology and History of Moldova

This paper is the result of a research of the collection of playbills from the National Museum of Archaeology and History of Moldova. The majority of playbills refers to the modern period (1941-2010) and reflects mainly the activity of national theaters, while playbills of provincial theaters are in a very small number (a few copies). It was found the total lack of playbills of 1918-1940, although it is known that in the interwar period in Bessarabia there were theaters. Depending on the form and content, the playbills were distributed by us in three categories. Playbills of the first category include the standard elements: name of the theatre, name of the play, director, producer, and composer, at times even distribution of roles, date and place of performance, the address of printing house. The second category of playbills includes complex information: together with the names of the author and the actors there are images of scenes from the performance. The third category of playbills combines the elements of the first and second categories: some of them include scenes from the performance, the others – only the names of the actors and authors. The same category includes playbills with images of main actors and famous authors.