Designed by Dirk Henn
Published as Premiere by db-Spiele, 1996?
Published as Show Manager by Queen Games, 1997
Translation by Richard Ingram
Distributed from The Rules Bank by Mike Siggins
Minor editing and HTML conversion by Dan Blum
Each player hires artistes with the purpose of producing four different musicals. The talent of the artistes gains the musical points, the greater the talent, the better the musical. Each player of course tries to outdo the competition. The musicals, when compared with those compiled by other players, are put in a ranking order in each city. This ranking will decide who wins the game.
Lay the 2 boards next to each other.
Shuffle the artiste cards and lay the pile face down next to the agency board.
Turn over the top 4 cards and lay them on the four spaces on the board, starting with the zero marks space.
Distribute the starting money as follows: with 4-6 players - 18,000 marks each; with 2-3 players - 36,000 marks each. The remaining money forms the bank.
Each player chooses a symbol and receives the appropriate cast list and 4 chips. Lay these face up in view of other players. Money and hired artistes should be kept hidden from other players.
If playing with 2-3 players, each player should take two sets of chips and the appropriate cast lists. Each player can thus produce each musical twice.
With 5 players, one set of chips will be left over, and two sets with 2 and 4 players. These will be used as touring productions. Their values are fixed at the start, remain the same throughout the game, and should be written on the chips. (The touring companies do not belong to a player. Their productions come into play when a player first puts on each musical. Place their chips face up near the city board.)
| Show Manager: | Wolf | Queenie | King Lear | Ballet |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Premiere: | Freudi | Miss Hanoi | Die Miserablen | Katz |
| One set: | 15 | 20 | 25 | 30 |
| Two sets: | 13, 17 | 18, 22 | 23, 27 | 28, 32 |
The last player to have seen a musical starts - play passes clockwise.
When it is your turn, you can do three things. Their order is fixed, but only the third action is compulsory.
Take a card from the board into your hand and pay the appropriate amount to the bank. Fill the space by moving higher valued cards to the right, and fill the left hand space with the top card from the pile. NB: You can only ever hire one artiste per turn.
How many artistes you can have in your hand depends upon which musical you want to produce. After putting on a production, you can have at most only two cards remaining in your hand. After putting on your final production, only one card may be left over.
Lay down exactly as many artiste cards as the musical you are putting on has roles. You can never discard or exchange cards. You can only get rid of them through putting on a show.
Add up the talent numbers on the played cards for the artistes' roles in the musical being put on. A miscast artiste counts as a 0. Each artiste can only play one role, and each role can only be awarded once. If you put up two artistes for the same part - i.e., they have talent points for the same role - one must be considered as miscast and so score 0 points. Actors in rep from the provinces (Provinzschauspieler) always count as being worth 1 point - they are never miscast.
If a musical is produced without miscast artistes, additional bonus points are awarded. The number of bonus points is equal to the number of roles in the musical - check the cast list for the numbers.
Write the points total on the appropriate musical chip. (With your symbol upright, inscribe the number above the "seagull" mark - in Premiere, write the number in the "Kredit möglich" space.) Now lay the used artiste cards to one side. They will no longer be needed.
With the first production of a musical, you can choose the city in which you wish it to premiere.
Lay the chip in the city of your choice on the top most space. Your choice will be dictated by your willingness to gamble. Some cities can earn you more victory points if you remain highly placed, but the drop in points if you move down the scale can be sharper. Only at the end of the game are the city points of importance.
After the city has been chosen and the musical put on, all subsequent productions of the same show must be put on in the same city. No differently titled shows can be put on in this city either. All subsequent productions will be ranked in accordance with their values, i.e. a better scoring production of the same show will push a more lowly scoring one from the top spot on the board. If there is a points tie, the new production is placed one space beneath the established production with the same points total.
If there are touring companies in the game, their chips are placed on the board as soon as a show is put on for the first time. The touring company chip is placed on the board first, at the top, and its position is adjusted if necessary in accordance with the points total achieved by the active player's production.
If you need money, then action 1 should be pursued, but you must already have put on at least one show. If you run out of money before putting on a production, you have simply played your hand badly and will have to rethink next time.
Each of your shows can only be borrowed against once. If playing with 2 or 3 players, and you have two productions of the same show playing, only one of them may be borrowed against. You can borrow only 10,000 marks maximum per musical in the form of credit. (This assumes that your production is worth at least 10 points.)
You can only borrow once per turn.
The amount you borrow is deducted from the value of the production, the new value is written below the "seagull" line (in Premiere, in the "Kredit ausgeschöpft" space), and the position of the production in the city is changed accordingly if necessary.
Take the appropriate amount of money (1,000 marks for each point deducted) from the bank. This money cannot later be exchanged for production points.
If 6 productions of any one show are put on, no more money can be borrowed against this title.
If the available artistes are not suitable, you can pay 2,000 marks into the bank and remove all artistes displayed, placing them in a discard pile. You cannot exchange part of the display, it's all or nothing. Now draw the top most 4 cards from the face down deck and fill the agency board, starting from the zero marks space.
If your finances permit, you can repeat this action as many times as you wish during the same turn, but you must pay 2,000 marks for each exchange.
If the face down deck becomes exhausted, shuffle the discard pile and use this to form a new deck.
When all chips lie on the city board, the game comes to an end. With 4 to 6 players, each player will have produced 4 musicals. With 2 to 3 players, each player will produced 8 musicals.
Add up the points earned by you in different cities in accordance with the values printed on the board. Points written on chips are now of no significance. Whoever has the most points is a star amongst impresarios and wins the game. If there is a tie, possession of the most money splits the tie.
The Game Cabinet - editor@gamecabinet.com - Richard Ingram