Development Blog

What is The Stage Library?

1:44am, 14th April 2009

This is something I’ve been trying to tie down myself for the last couple of days: exactly how would I describe the site to someone who’d never visited it before?

Well, I think I’ve got it now:

The Stage Library is a valuable resource for those people involved with creating performance works.  It brings new and independent writers together with a wide spectrum of producers.

Over the next week or so I’m going to try to get that down in a proper mission statement, but in the mean time here is what I hope will be the benefits for both writers and producers.

For Writers

Writers will be able to publish their works quickly and easily making it available to wide range of producers and directors.  Writers will retain full copyright of their work and will have direct control over the licence their work is published under, this includes setting the price for individual manuscripts, full cast sets and performance rights.  Writers will get their own page on The Stage Library allowing producers interested in their work to browse all their published scripts, as well as carrying additional biographical information and optional contact details.  We also plan to launch services enabling writers to have their work published for sale in both traditional and online bookshops as well as a service allowing producers to commission writers to create specific works for them.  More details on these services will follow.

For producers

Producers will be able to search a wide variety of work covering a range of different performance genre.  They will have the ability to sample scripts prior to purchasing full copies, as well as licence works for performance directly off the author.  The Stage Library will give producers access to fresh talent and new unperformed works, as well as more established writers and scripts with a tried and tested track record.  Our system will also learn your search preferences and recommend new writers and scripts to you to help take the headache out of choosing your next performance piece.  We also have plans to launch a service connecting producers looking to commission special works to appropriate writers available to take on such jobs.

I know there’s a long way to go to realise these aims, but I hope you will stick with us through launch and as the site develops and grows.  I’ll be writing about developments and ideas on this blog so please do come back to see how things are coming on in the next few weeks before testing and launch.  I’d also really like to hear your views and ideas to jonathon@stagelibrary.com — I look forward to reading your email.

Edit: We’ve created a planned feature list to keep track of things while developing the site and give you an idea of the features to come.  This will be kept updated so you can follow the progress.  I hope to integrate this into the site itself shortly, but for now it can be found here: http://flutt.tadalist.com/lists/1277427/public.