Production tools FTW (or how to use the other 50% of Celtx)

One of the interesting things about putting on a play is watching vague concepts like the passing of time shrink visibly before my eyes!

I'm currently at week 4 of a 10 week rehearsal schedule for Dating by the Book, a comedy that I have written and am now attempting to bring to the stage at Steeple Aston's rather charming Village hall. I'm vaguely aware of the passing time in the same way a drowning man is vaguely aware of the absence of air. I try not to think of the schedule as being almost half-expired, but still being half-full.

Yeah I know, I'm not fooling anyone am I? I'm three quarters of the way to a nervous breakdown and considering taking up smoking again (have you SEEN the price). The only thing, well some of the many things, that keep me sane are the support of my family and friends, the enthusiastic talent of the cast and the rigid steel production machine that is the Steeple Aston Players. If ever the Russians invade, they will have their work cut out occupying Steeple Aston...

My main stay of sanity boosting comes from Alan, my mentor for all things production in the theatre, and who seems to have a phone number for any situation. Need some scenery, talk to William. Looking for props, here's Wacky Wardrobes in Banbury. Need to have a posing pouch sewn onto a dinner shirt (don't ask), here's a number for that. The man is a walking phone directory of useful theatrical contact points. Effectively, he is Steeple Aston's answer to Google!

Not that it's all plain sailing. Alan is unavoidably away from the production for the next week and a bit and I'm left feeling like a tightrope walker (which is roughly how I see a directors job) whose net has been whisked away (which is roughly how I see the opening night). In the mean time I'm staring down the business end of a production dead-line. Stage manager, lighting crew and the prop master all want lists of "stuff" to look after or do. They need it broken down by character and act and scene. And they needed it yesterday.

I'm solving the problem in my own way.

I'm using technology.

The script for Dating by the Book was written using software called Celtx, a bespoke writing tool for film and theatre scripts. If you write film and theatre and you don't use this tool, you are seriously missing out.

I'll freely admit that at first glance Cletx appears to be little more than a glorified word processor, but it does have some very handy features, which while available for Word via macros, achieves the same end in a more eloquent and design friendly fashion. At the moment I am focusing on it's production tools, which by and large are pretty awesome.

Imagine I wrote this play in Word. One simple production job is to list all the props required in the play, by scene and act number. In Word I would go through the script, line by line, write down each prop in a separate document, then repeat the process for wardrobe items, stage dressing and so on.

Now here we are at Celtx. I am going through the script line by line, but this time, instead of writing each prop down, I simply highlight the prop, Earphones, for example, then in the production tools area I tell Celtx this is a Prop. Elsewhere in the script the play refers to a table, so i highlight the word Table and tell Celtx it is Stage Dressing (click on these images to see larger versions).



I can carry on doing this, marking items of wardrobe as well as props and stage dressing, then at the end end of the exercise simply ask Celtx to provide me with a report, which it does, listing all items per scene and act. Job done.

That's what I love about technology. It makes my life so much easier and stress free...

... Unless it crashes... Or I lose all my work to a hard drive failure... Or the program is impossible to understand.

But other than that, for me, it's technology FTW every time!

Paul

PS - for those who don't know, FTW = For the Win.