Backstage (the company) was founded by
Allen Zwerdling and
Ira Eaker in New York City in December 1960 as a weekly tabloid-sized newspaper called
Back Stage. Zwerdling and Eaker had worked together for years as editor and advertising director, respectively, of the
Show Business casting newspaper, which was founded by Leo Shull as ''Actor's Cues
in 1941. After Zwerdling and Eaker left Show Business
they looked into creating a casting section within The Village Voice newspaper; but, having been turned down, they decided to launch Backstage'' on their own. At the time of its founding,
Backstage (the
newsmagazine) was primarily a casting paper for New York actors intended to compete with
Show Business Weekly. It gradually broadened its scope to include coverage of New York's television commercial production industry and a variety of performing arts, the former of which proved to be so lucrative advertising-wise that the commercial-production beat came to dominate the publication. Additionally, ''Backstage's ''reach began to slowly spread across the U.S., although the largest portion of its readership remained on the East Coast. Then, in 1975,
Backstage opened a Los Angeles bureau and began to more actively extend its casting and editorial coverage across the U.S., with correspondents added in Chicago, Florida, and New England. Around 1977, co-founder Ira Eaker's daughter Sherry joined
Backstage as an editor, focusing primarily on expanding its coverage of the theater industry; in 1984, the theater section of
Backstage became a separate insert. In 1988, BPI bought
The Hollywood Reporter. Backstage and
The Hollywood Reporter along with a few other related brands, were grouped together within BPI, becoming its film and performing arts division, a group designed to compete with
Variety and other entertainment-industry trade publications. Backstage would become involved in a number of other acquisitions, mergers, spin-offs, and sales over the next few decades. On July 6, 1990,
Backstage's advertising industry content was spun off as a standalone trade publication known as
Backstage/Shoot, leaving
Backstage itself to focus on the creative arts. VNU eventually came to own a variety of trade publications—including all of the BPI magazines as well as
Mediaweek, Adweek, Film Journal International,
The Hollywood Creative Directory, and many others—along with measurement company
Nielsen Media Research, and events such as
ShoWest and the
Clio Awards. Also in early 1994,
Back Stage publisher Steve Elish hired a West Coast editor-in-chief, Rob Kendt, to help create a new publication,
Back Stage West, a weekly trade paper with a focus on the West Coast acting community and casting opportunities based in California. The Drama-Logue company was founded by Bill Bordy in 1969 as a casting hotline, and in 1972 it became a weekly trade publication entitled
The Hollywood Drama-Logue Casting Sheet, commonly known simply as
Drama-Logue. Before the end of 1998, Drama-Logue's holdings were fully integrated into Backstage.com and
Back Stage West, which for a time was co-branded as
Back Stage West/Drama-Logue.), film and television editor Jenelle Riley, contributing editor Jackie Apodaca, and actor-columnist Michael Kostroff (known for his work in The Wire''), among others. In October 2008,
Backstage East and
Backstage West were permanently combined into a single weekly publication with an expanded national focus. This new "national edition" was given the same name as the original 1960 edition:
Back Stage.
Backstage also launched a number of blogs around this time, including Blog Stage, Espresso, Backstage Unscripted, and The Backstage 411 Casting FAQ, all of which were discontinued in early 2012. In early 2009,
Ross Reports was renamed
Call Sheet by Backstage, working with
The Hollywood Creative Directory to expand its listings to include a wider variety of entertainment-industry contacts. The
Backstage brand remained closely tied to its primary sister publications,
The Hollywood Reporter and
Billboard, as well as the other e5 Global Media publications, such as
Adweek,
Film Journal International, and
The Hollywood Creative Directory. However,
Backstage also carved out its own industry niche by focusing on the needs of actors, models, performers, and casting directors; publishing directories (such as
Call Sheet, a bimonthly listing of
talent agents,
casting directors, and film productions), books (actor handbooks and biographies published under the
Watson-Guptill imprint Backstage Books), casting-director mailing labels, and special "insert" magazines (such as award-season nomination guides, theatre-school guides, and the
ACTION magazine for actors interested in making their own movies); producing live events; and continuing the development of Internet casting technology. In October 2011, media entrepreneur John Amato led Backstage through a spin-off from Prometheus Global Media as part of a new strategic partnership, with the new company being called Backstage, LLC. Prometheus shareholder
Guggenheim Partners backed the sale. In August 2012,
Back Stage was relaunched again, with the magazine switching from a tabloid-sized newspaper to a smaller, full-color glossy magazine (and also being slightly rebranded from
Back Stage to
Backstage). The magazine added increased cross-promotion for the resources and utilities on the similarly-redesigned Backstage.com. Amato stated readers had requested that the print edition have a smaller form factor to make it easier to take to casting calls, while the redesigned website was meant to "[lead] the user into the products and content that we’ve seen historically be the most helpful for our audience". In January 2013, Backstage LLC acquired Sonicbids, a service designed to help musicians find gigs, for $15 million. In April 2013, Prometheus Global Media, now fully owned by Guggenheim, bought the remainder of Backstage LLC. John Amato was made president of the Billboard Group, a new unit that would oversee
Backstage,
Billboard, and Sonicbids. Sonicbids was sold to Advance Music Technologies in 2024. In December 2016, Backstage expanded its online casting tools and editorial coverage to include a wider international scope, with an initial focus on casting in the United Kingdom. In October 2017, Backstage launched its first fully integrated mobile casting app. In 2019,
Ridgemont Equity Partners invested in
Backstage. That year, Backstage revamped its online casting platform, adding profiles, new application options, new notification options,
Google Maps integration, as well as new review features for employers. Between 2019 and 2022, Backstage acquired several creative marketplaces: • The Mandy Network – acquired in 2021, Mandy is a global platform for hiring film and TV crew, actors, and creative professionals. Its integration broadened Backstage's access to behind-the-scenes talent across production roles like camera, sound,
post-production, and more. • StarNow – also acquired in 2021, StarNow is a casting platform in Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom, with a strong user base of emerging talent and localized casting calls. The acquisition expanded Backstage's international footprint. • Voice123 – one of the largest
voice-over marketplaces in the world, Voice123 connects brands, producers, and creators with voice actors for commercial, animation, corporate, and gaming projects. The 2021 acquisition extended Backstage's voice casting capabilities. • Coverfly – also in 2021, Backstage acquired Coverfly, a platform supporting emerging screenwriters through competitions, fellowships, and a discoverability database. Coverfly announced to users in 2025 it could be ceasing operations as of August 1, 2025. •
FilmFreeway – a submission platform used by thousands of film festivals worldwide, allowing filmmakers to submit their work for consideration, was acquired by Backstage in 2021, aligning with its mission of supporting independent creators. • ShareGrid – a
peer-to-peer marketplace for film and photography equipment rentals. Its 2022 acquisition by Backstage marked the company's expansion into production logistics and gear rentals, offering more end-to-end solutions for content creators and production teams.
Acquisition by Cast & Crew In January 2022, Backstage Holdings was acquired by Cast & Crew, a Burbank-based payroll management company operating in the entertainment industry. This transition marked the company's integration into a broader suite of end-to-end production tools for hiring creative talent and managing accounting, payroll, human resources, and data operations. == Platform and services ==