The blog
Notes from the booth.
Practical writing on running a production — from script analysis to strike. Written by theatre people who've actually called the show.
Featured
How to Take a Headshot With Your Phone (That Casting Won't Wince At)
How to get a usable headshot with a phone — how far back to stand, which camera to use, where the light goes, and how to do it alone.
Producing
Acting Headshots: How to Prepare, What to Wear, and What to Order
How a headshot session actually runs, what to bring, what to practice, and how many images to order — plus why your print file ...
Stage Management
What Goes in a Performance Report (and What Doesn't)
The stage manager's performance report, section by section: the two running-time totals, house count, department notes, acciden...
Stage Management
How to Write a Rehearsal Report (that gets read)
The stage manager's nightly report: eight sections, a note for every department, and the two-column schedule that shows whether...
Producing
How to Make a Youth Actor Resume
The acting resume for a performer under 18: who the contact is, why there's no birth date, how school and camp credits are writ...
Producing
How to Make an Acting Resume in Detail: Format, Print, and Staple It Right
What goes on an acting resume, what stays off, the union lines that are still true, and how to trim and staple the page to a he...
Producing
Did Your Play or Musical Actually Make Money?
A show can land within $192 of its projected profit and still have missed on every line underneath. What to do with the numbers...
Producing
How Does a Play or a Musical Pay for Itself?
Six places a show's money comes from, and how to put a real number on each one before you open. The same two Cedar Valley shows...
Producing
What Does It Cost to Put On a Play or a Musical?
A play, a musical, and the one line you cannot look up. What a show actually costs to produce, and how to build the number for ...
Directing
What Is a French Scene? (And Why It Should Run Your Rehearsal Schedule)
A French scene is a unit of a play defined by who is on stage. Break a script down that way and you stop calling thirty people ...
Directing
How to Choose Your Next Season
Season selection feels like a taste question. It isn't. A step-by-step process for picking your next season — constraints first...
Producing
Theatre Template: Theatre Season Planning Grid
Lay a whole season out side by side — cast sizes, budgets, audience fit, rights — and the right shape usually declares itself. ...
Design & Tech
Theatre Template: Costume Measurement Chart
Measure once, write it down somewhere you'll find it again. A free costume measurement chart for logging every performer's size...
Stage Management
Theatre Template: Line Changes Template
Cuts, additions, and rewrites, tracked so the whole company is working from the same script. A free line changes template for s...
Stage Management
Theatre Template: Acting Line Notes Template
Line notes an actor can actually use — page, line, what was said, what should have been. A free template for keeping a show on-...
Producing
The Audition Form Template: How to Run Organized Theatre Auditions
Everything you need to collect on audition day, on one page, so you're not asking for a phone number while forty people wait. A...
Producing
Theatre Template: The Cast List
The document your cast will screenshot and send to their families. A free cast list template that's clear about roles, next ste...
Producing
Theatre Template: Production Meeting Agenda
A running order for production meetings so every department reports and nobody talks for twenty minutes about paint. Free agend...
Stage Management
Theatre Template: Front of House Show Report
What house management actually needs to write down each night. A free front of house show report for house counts, late seats, ...
Stage Management
Theatre Template: Master Cue Sheet
Every light, sound, and scenic cue in one document, numbered and in order. The free master cue sheet stage managers use to call...
Design & Tech
Theatre Template: Props List
Where every prop is, who's finding it, and whether it's actually here yet. A free props list that survives the week when three ...
Stage Management
Theatre Template: Daily Rehearsal Schedule
The schedule that tells everyone where to be and when. A free Google Sheet for building tomorrow's call — who's needed, what yo...
Education
THEATRE READER CHALLENGE: 1 Year of Plays to Read
One play a week for a year. The full reading list — fifty-two plays worth knowing, whether you direct, act, teach, or just want...
Producing
7 Ways to Monetize Your Show Program or Playbill
Your program can pay for itself and then some. Seven ways to sell ads, land sponsors, and turn a playbill into a line in the bu...
Producing
4 Reasons You Didn't Get the Part (and how to get it next time...)
Four reasons the part went to somebody else, most of which had nothing to do with your audition. What actually happens behind t...
Producing
How to Get Rid of the Scottish Curse
Someone said Macbeth in the building. Here's the cleansing ritual, step by step, so you can get back inside — spitting over the...
Producing
5 Interesting Ways to Play with Your Monologues
Five ways to shake loose a monologue you know too well. Playful exercises for finding new beats in material that's gone flat in...
Producing
10 Ways to Turn Your Theatre Audience into Season Ticket Holders
Subscribers don't start with a discount, they start with a reason to come back. Ten ways to turn a one-night audience into peop...
Producing
10 Rehearsal Must-Haves for Actors
What to have in your bag before the first rehearsal — the ten things that separate an actor who's ready from one who's borrowin...
Education
Teaching Parts of the Stage
Upstage, downstage, and why house left isn't stage left. A free printable diagram plus a fill-in-the-blank page for students to...
Producing
The Ultimate Guide to Seeing Theatre for Free or Low Cost
Rush tickets, lotteries, ushering, and the tricks nobody puts on the website. How to keep seeing live theater when the ticket p...
Education
How to Write an Actor Bio: A Quick and Easy Formula
How to write an actor bio without the agony. A six-part formula that works for a first show or a thirty-credit resume, five wor...
Education
THEATRE READER CHALLENGE: A Year of Plays - Part II
Fifty-two more plays, one a week. Part two of the reading challenge, for anyone who finished the first list and wants the next ...
Design & Tech
How to Create a Show Program in Google Drive
Build a show program in Google Docs, where your whole team can edit it and nobody has to own the file. Step by step, from cast ...
Education
Top 10 Virtual Theatre Games
Ten theater games built for a screen, with directions clear enough to run cold. The ones that kept a room of teenagers awake on...
Design & Tech
Virtual Production Tech - The Top Recommendations
The gear and software that make an online show watchable, and the things that quietly ruin one. Recommendations from actually r...
Education
10 MORE Virtual Theatre Games
Ten more games that work over video — no props, no breakout-room silence. Full directions for each, for class, rehearsal, or a ...
Education
Top 3 Improv Games for Any Level - Can You Guess Which?
Three improv games that work with beginners and still hold up with a trained cast. Directions for playing them, and notes on co...
Producing
Virtual Theatre Education Resources: The Epic Crowdsourced List
A crowdsourced pile of virtual theater education resources, contributed by teachers who were figuring it out in real time. Tool...
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