Virtual Callboard

[Cedes]

Hello everyone!

I did a search on the site, and couldn't really find any up-to-date info, but I am wondering if any of you could give me a testimonial and opinion of Virtual Callboard. My company is seriously considering switching over to it, but we wanted to get a firmer idea of what the current theatre community uses. I met with the creators at USITT this year, and was really impressed with what they have done with it and plan to do with it, but we'd like some real-world opinions. If anyone also has another site/system that they like that they'd be willing to share, I'll take that too. Thanks in advance!

[loebtmc]

Did you do a search? because I remember at least two discussions about this, one relating to the system at the USITT in Long Beach, and one a general discussion by some folks who were playing with it.

[nj_song]

I've really enjoyed and preferred to use a Virtual Callboard for casts of more than 10 people. It helps keep everyone on the same page because all the needed information is in one location online. Granted, I've never done anything very fancy or high tech because they've only been for undergraduate productions. Here's one of my wordpress Virtual Callboards: http://letterstospu.wordpress.com/.

[Cedes]

Did you do a search? because I remember at least two discussions about this, one relating to the system at the USITT in Long Beach, and one a general discussion by some folks who were playing with it.

I did, and both were back from 2008/2010, which really weren't helpful, it was a lot of "I'll check it out." Also, they've done some major overhaul since then.

[MatthewShiner]

I know of no one who uses it.

[KMC]

The discussions that we have had on the subject have been very loose and informal, I don't think any of them ever got to the stage of actually using the product.

If you elect to use it we'd love to have your thoughts on it!

[PSMKay]

I think given the number of times that SM software has arisen as a topic, if someone were using it happily they'd have let us know by now.

[Skulking]

I've looked into it some myself, and while the different solutions all seem interesting, none of them seem to quite match with my style.  I suspect that that is the problem with most of the stage management software packages.  We all have our own style, and our own slightly different way of doing things.  Software packages like this can be made in one of two ways.  The first way is to make it work exactly one way, and force the person using it to work in that way.  For some this may be an acceptable solution, and for others the differences are too great and they won't use it.  The second way is to build the package in numerous small pieces and allow the person using it the option of customizing how it works.  The problem with this method is that in order to have enough flexibility to do things in all the different way stage managers do things, the package becomes enormous, unintuitive, and incredibly complicated to work with. 

My sister works at a Yoga studio, and uses something similar to the second option (For fitness based businesses, not stage management).  I have looked it over, and it is one of the most frustratingly over complicated pieces of software I have ever looked at.  It is complicated enough that they offer a one week seminar on how to use the package.  I can't imagine trying to use something similar to stage manage. 

[PSMKay]

Too many people are trying to build a better mousetrap. I don't understand this questing for a stage management "killer app." We already have a full-featured, flexible system that takes years to master and is rarely used to its fullest potential. There are thousands of manuals and guides, week and month long courses on how to use it. It lets you make prompt scripts, time breaks, create scene breakdowns, track absences and generate nearly any type of paperwork ever seen in a theatre. Any intern can pick up its output and use it. It doesn't cost our employers anything extra since they probably already have it loaded. It runs on Macs, PCs and portables. The only thing it doesn't do well is notate our own blocking hieroglyphics, but a handwriting font could ameliorate that quickly.

I'm talking about MS Office. (And Google Drive and LibreOffice/OpenOffice and iWork.)

If it makes you feel better you can call it the Redmond Stage Manager Automation Extravaganza v. 10.4.96b (or Stagmatex if you're feeling all web 2.0), but I've yet to see any of these tools that can beat it. Yes, it's old and sometimes frumpy, but it is also a kickass masterpiece of code. True expert users of the Office suite are just as awe-inspiring as automation experts.

Yes, there are industry-specific apps out there for other parts of the backstage world (lighting, sound, box office, playwriting), but their disciplines are far more focused than ours. Cross-disciplinary jobs like SM & PM need more general applications. I think that in watching the designers & techs play with their toys we got jealous and loset sight of the fact that we did the perfect stage manager thing and cross-purposed our own tool long before they did.

Here's the thing about software designers. They did very well selling stuff to the rest of the backstage world, and don't like to see a division that they can't sell to. They want to make something sexy and flashy that they can promote to us at all of those tech conferences that we are never invited to attend.

So they try to come up with something that suits us, and run headlong into the problem that has been plaguing me for 13 years now: we don't need it. There are no advertisers who are even interested in buying banners on SMNetwork because y'all don't need anything. The job requires you to think outside the box, work efficiently and use things in bizarre ways (see also: rehearsal props). Reinventing the wheel for a software program runs contrary to our very natures.

[dallas10086]

We've been using Virtual Callboard (unlimited package) for nearly a year now, mainly because we have a rotation of freelance stage managers and designers that sometimes work more than one show - and in discussions and meetings for the entire season within a three month time frame - so it became practical to keep all the information and schedule in one place like VC, and to keep the paperwork looking uniform between multiple people. My staff here took a liking to it immediately and use it on a regular basis; the casts seem to like it too, especially since we sometimes cast students - the parents like being able to check the schedule online.

I wouldn't recommend it to a freelance SM, it wouldn't be worth the trouble 'breaking in' people to start using it. But I'd recommend it to a staff SM with multiple productions with large casts on a fairly regular basis.

[EricMayer]

I was the production manager at a large university for several years and implemented the use of Virtual Callboard. It's great for student stage managers, student actors and student designers. The Costume Studio really liked the Costume Fitting Scheduling feature, and the faculty advisors liked it because I could set everything up to send to their email as appropriate. It's a great tool for teaching - and when I would sub for the local Equity theatre I wished that they had something similar in place to help ensure consistency between their company stage manager and myself. If anyone wants to know more, feel free to ask me. The folks at Virtual Callboard are pretty cool and very responsive when you have questions or have feature requests.