This season, Broadway’s biggest stars haven’t waited until the curtain comes up to start entertaining us. Many of them have brought a distinctive wit to an aspect of theater life that’s often ignored — the bio in the Playbill. Most performers and crew members use the space to rattle off a list of their past credits and awards recognition on stage and screen (with a special emphasis on theater roles), often ending with high school yearbook-style shout-outs to agents, friends, family, and the college programs that nurtured them. Social media handles or website addresses have become de rigueur kickers of late.

But many Playbill bios have stood out in a different way in the Broadway season that’s just wrapped. Take Megan Hilty, who’s playing the vain actress Madeline Ashton in a musical based on the 1992 movie comedy Death Becomes Her. Hilty first gained beyond-Broadway fame playing an aspiring actress in the theater-world TV show Smash (itself adapted into a Broadway musical this season) — so she dispensed with recounting her résumé and instead substituted that of Meryl Streep, who originated the role of Ashton on screen. “Megan Hilty (Madeline Ashton) has been lauded as ‘the best actress of her generation,'” the bio begins. “The countless accolades for her career include 9 Golden Globe Awards and 21 Oscar nominations, winning three for Kramer Vs. Kramer (1979), Sophie’s Choice (1982) and The Iron lady (2011).” It goes on to list other awards and Streepian films in which Hilty was notably MIA before concluding with one of the younger actress’s legit TV credits (Smash) and the online handle @ThisIsTotallyMegansRealBio — which is an actual Instagram page boasting a gallery of Streep photos.

Hilty has been straightforward about her intentions to shake up the staid artist bio. “I’ve always looked at the Playbill going ‘Man, this is a missed opportunity for something deliciously silly,” she told Kelly Clarkson last fall. “I’m in this very silly show, playing a character that the greatest actress of all time has created. So I wanted to give a little nod to that, and just have a little fun, and hopefully she thinks it’s as silly as I do.” 

But Hilty’s not the only who’s been just having a little fun in the Playbill.

Jane Krakowski, who appeared last fall in a starry Off Broadway comedy called Shit. Meet. Fan., took self-deprecation to new levels in her bio, describing herself as “an award-winning actress on stage and television and has been in only one movie that made any money at the box office. Jane has lost roles to many actresses she admires and wonders how Nicole Kidman can star in so many projects in one year. Broadway shows she wishes she had gotten, didn’t say no to or could’ve made work: LES MISERABLES, RAGTIME, PAJAMA GAME, ANYTHING GOES, XANADU, BOEING BOEING. Television pilots she made that never got picked up: ‘TASTE’ (CBS), ‘SEX, POWER, LOVE AND POLITICS’ (CBS), ‘DEAD BOSS’ (FOX). Jane felt she finally made it when she got a washer and dryer in her apartment and now strives to have an elevator that locks off on her floor. Jane wishes Meryl Streep didn’t come to television. Please Google or Wiki her for all else. Please don’t Google ‘Jane Krakowski feet’ because that gets more hits than she’s comfortable with and remember she never dated nor even met the Pillow Guy.”

Younger actors are also mixing things up. Sadie Sink, the Stranger Things star who heads up the new drama John Proctor Is the Villain, notes that she made her Broadway debut at age 10 in the 2012 Annie revival but goes on to describe a little-seen performance of note: “Her turn as Grisabella [sic] in a 2020 living room production of the musical Cats has been described as ‘spellbinding’ and ‘distressing.'”

Shailene Woodley, the star of the Divergent YA film series and HBO’s Big Little Lies, took a similar approach for her Broadway debut in Cult of Love: “You may recognize her from the 1995 Palmdale Community Theater production of Oliver Twist where she played one of Fagan’s boys.”

Even George Clooney got in on the act, ignoring all of his film and TV credits (and his two Oscars) in his brief, five-line bio for Good Night, and Good Luck: “George’s last time in an Equity theatre was in June of 1986, a play called Vicious at Steppenwolf Theatre. He has never appeared on Broadway so…buckle up.”

You don’t have to be an A-lister to be playful in the Playbill. Greg Keller, a veteran character actor who played a reporter in last fall’s revival of Yellowface at the Roundabout, noted his long association with the company “where he was cast in his first Off-Broadway play, Shaw’s You Never Can Tell at the old Laura Pels, in which he carried a tray. Roundabout then cast him in his first two Broadway plays, The Rainmaker (carried a hay bale) and Uncle Vanya (carried a samovar). More recently, Greg has carried fewer props on Broadway in Wit and Our Mother’s Brief Affair….“

While the well-known stars of last fall’s The Roommate, Mia Farrow and Patti LuPone, delivered lengthy accounts of their storied careers, the show’s equally acclaimed director Jack O’Brien offered a pithy one-sentence blurb: “Currently celebrating his Lifetime Achievement Tony Award, but apparently he is still working.” (Indeed, the 85-year-old directing legend did earn a special recognition at the 2024 ceremony — to add to his three Tony Awards for everything from Hairspray to The Coast of Utopia.)

Meanwhile, the show’s understudy, Carol Halstead, sent readers to her website for her full bio while offering this statement in the midst of the 2024 presidential campaign: “Carol is proud to be a childless cat lady with a 4th degree black belt in Seido Karate.” (J.D. Vance should be extra-alert if he decides to visit Shubert Alley after dark.)

However, I think my favorite bio of this Broadway season belongs not to an actor but a prop, the potted Aeonium Rose Tree that Darren Criss’s robot character nurtures in the hit musical Maybe Happy Ending — which in some ways follows a more traditional approach by listing a series of the plant’s (imagined) past stage appearances: “Broadway debut! Regional credits include Little Shop… (Audrey 2), Into the Woods (Understudy Beanstalk), and The Secret Garden (Ensemble). Special thanks to MaBoon for inspiring him to grow!” Then, of course the scene-stealer mentions its Instagram handle (@thereal_hwaboon) — which is entirely real and worth a follow.

Theater folk have earned a rep for taking themselves veddy, veddy seriously so this new trend of playful self-deprecation is a welcome corrective. More, please!