Rehearsals & schedule

The Rehearsals area is where you schedule rehearsals, decide who is called, send the call out, and keep track of who turned up.

You will find it under Production in the menu on the left. It has three tabs: Schedule, Attendance and Availability.

Screenshots show the light theme. The app looks the same in dark.

How to schedule a rehearsal

1. Open Rehearsals ▸ Schedule.
2. Click Add Rehearsal.

3. Set the Date, the Start time and the End time. These are the only fields you must fill in.
4. Add a Title, a Venue and Notes if they help. All three are optional.
5. Pick one or more Session focus tags — Vocal, Blocking, Dance, Sitzprobe, Full Run and so on.
6. Tick what's being rehearsed. Prompter calls the cast in those scenes for you.
7. Tick anybody else you need under Also call.
8. Click Create Rehearsal.

How to schedule many rehearsals at once

Use a series when rehearsals repeat on the same days each week — for example, every Tuesday and Thursday from February until opening night.

1. Open Rehearsals ▸ Schedule.
2. Click Add a Series.
3. Set the First date and the Last date.
4. Choose the Days of the week.
5. For each day, set the Start time, the End time and the Venue. If the days share them, fill in the first day, then click Same time and venue as … on each of the others.
6. Add the people to call on that day. For example, call one director on every Tuesday and the musical director on every Thursday. You can also choose whole departments.
7. Check the line that says how many rehearsals the series creates, and on which dates.
8. Click Create Rehearsals.

Each rehearsal is created on its own card, in draft, with nothing being rehearsed yet. Open any card later to add the scenes. Then Prompter calls the cast for them, the same as for a single rehearsal.

A series does not send anything. Calls go out the same way as for any other rehearsal.

How the call sheet builds itself

Tick what's being rehearsed: any mix of acts, scenes and single Beats. Prompter works out who is needed and calls them.

It follows the chain you have already built: the Beats you ticked, then the characters in those Beats, then the person cast in each role. Rehearse Act 1 Scene 3 and Prompter calls the people in that scene, and nobody else. Tick more scenes later and it adds anybody who is now needed.

• It only adds people. It never takes them off. If you have already told somebody they are called, a change to the running order does not drop them.
• If a character is not cast yet, Prompter tells you. There is nobody to call for that role.

This is why you attach characters to Beats in Show. Do it once, and you never write a call sheet by hand again.

Calling the band, crew and everybody else

Prompter works out the cast for you. It can't know whether you need the band or the crew on a given night, so you choose them.

Tick them under Also call when you set the rehearsal up. The count beside each department tells you how many people that is. You can also use Add by department on the rehearsal itself at any time.

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How to confirm the plan and send the calls

You build the whole schedule first, then send every call at once. Each person gets one email, not one for each rehearsal.

1. Build out your schedule while the production is in Planning or Pre-Production. Nothing is emailed yet.
2. Sort your casting, so the call sheets fill.
3. Click Confirm plan, at the top of the Rehearsals page.
4. Advance the phase to Production on the Timeline. This is what sends the calls.

Confirming does not send anything. It locks the plan and lets you move to Production. You can't advance a production until its rehearsal plan is confirmed.

When you advance the phase, everybody on the plan is emailed. Each person gets one email listing all their rehearsals, with the date, time, venue, focus and running order for each. Anybody with no email address is named back to you, so you can reach them another way. The box tells you how many people it will email before you confirm, including how many have no address.

Changes after the calls have gone out

You'll still make changes once you're in Production. Prompter keeps track of anybody who has not had their call yet:

• The moment you add people to a rehearsal, a prompt offers to send their call.
• A banner on the Schedule shows "N people haven't been called yet", with Review and Send calls.
• If you close the tab with calls still pending, your browser warns you first.

Send calls emails only the people who are out of date, so you can press it as often as you like. To re-send to one person, for example after an email bounced, use their row in the call sheet.

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How to mark attendance

1. Open Rehearsals ▸ Attendance.
2. Choose a rehearsal from the Rehearsal list. It opens on the next one.
3. Click Present, Late, Absent or Excused beside each name.
4. Click Clear to undo a mark.

The header tells you how many people are called and how many are still unmarked, so you can see at a glance whether the register is finished.

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How to check availability before you schedule

1. Open Rehearsals ▸ Availability.
2. Read Scheduling conflicts at the top. Each one is somebody who is called on a date they cannot make.
3. Click a conflict to acknowledge it, which marks it as seen.
4. Use Unavailability by person below to look somebody up, or to add a date on their behalf.

Your cast and crew submit their own unavailable dates from My Schedule, so most entries arrive without you doing anything.

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When a rehearsal moves or is cancelled

Plans change, and the people you have already called need to know.

• Moved. Changing a confirmed rehearsal's date, time or venue flags the people already called. They appear in the banner and in Review, marked as a move rather than an addition, and sending gives them an updated email worded as a change. Editing notes, focus or the running order does not count as a move and tells nobody.
• ⚠ Cancelled. Use Cancel rehearsal, not Delete. It keeps a record, marks the rehearsal cancelled, and emails everybody who was called straight away. You don't press Send. The button tells you how many people it will email before you confirm.
• No longer needed. Removing somebody who was already called asks you first, then emails them that they are not needed for that rehearsal. Removing somebody who was never called happens quietly.

Prompter can't yet send calls automatically a set number of days before a rehearsal.

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Your calls in the email digest

Your daily or weekly digest starts with your calls. A daily digest lists the calls in the next 24 hours. A weekly digest lists the calls in the next 7 days, and it arrives on Monday in your organisation's timezone. Every time is shown in your organisation's timezone.

• Only calls that have been sent to you appear. A rehearsal plan that is confirmed, but whose calls have not gone out yet, does not show.
• A rehearsal that was cancelled since your last digest appears again, marked Cancelled. You also got an email the moment it was cancelled. The digest is a second chance to see it.
• If the digest says a production has not attached its cast to any beats, Prompter cannot work out your calls for it. That is not the same as having no calls. Your Production Secretary fixes it in Show ▸ Structure.

A digest with calls and nothing else still arrives.

If you belong to more than one company, you get one digest with a section for each, as long as both companies have the same email address for you. If they have different addresses for you, each address gets its own company's digest. A weekly digest arrives on Monday where the company you used last is.

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If a call sheet comes out empty

The call sheet fills from the cast attached to each Beat you rehearse. If it is empty, the Beats usually have no cast on them yet. Casting somebody in Auditions gives them their role, but it does not put them into the running order.

The Attendance tab says so when it happens, and points you at Show to attach cast to the Beats. You can also add people to a rehearsal by hand from there.

The Availability tab says "Nobody is called yet" while the call sheet is empty. It does not show a green "no scheduling conflicts", because there was nobody to check.

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What your cast and crew see

Members and HODs get My Schedule in their sidebar, showing only the rehearsals they are called to, split into Upcoming and Past. Once the plan is live, a rehearsal appears there the moment somebody is added to its call sheet. They do not have to wait for the email. They also submit their own unavailability from here, which is what feeds the Availability tab.

While the plan is a draft, they see none of it. They see "The rehearsal schedule isn't published yet — you'll be emailed your calls once it is." A draft can still change without anybody being told, so your cast never plan around a date you have not committed to.

You and your HODs do see the draft in My Schedule, marked Draft plan, so you can check your own calls while you build it.

All times are shown in your organisation's timezone, which you set in Organisation ▸ General.

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Calls in your cast's own calendar

Every call email includes a line: Add your calls to your calendar. Your cast and crew tap it once. After that, their rehearsal calls, the meetings they are listed as an attendee on and the production's key dates appear in the calendar on their own phone or computer.

• It works for everybody on a call sheet, including people with no Prompter login.
• You do nothing. Prompter creates each person's link and puts it in their call emails. Nobody switches calendars on or off.
• It stays up to date by itself. Move a rehearsal and the new time appears. Cancel it and it disappears. Take someone off a production and that show's entries go.
• It only shows what has been sent. A rehearsal appears once that person's call has gone out, not while the plan is a draft.
• It is read-only. Editing an entry in a phone changes nothing in Prompter. Attendance is still marked in Prompter.

Their calendar app decides how often it checks for changes. Apple Calendar lets the user choose. Google Calendar can take several hours. So for a change on the day, post on the Noticeboard or send an email as well.

If a link is lost or shared

Open the person in People, then Calendar. Copy link gives you their link to send by hand. Reset link stops the old link working, for example after a lost phone or a link that was forwarded. They then subscribe to the new link, which also goes out in their next call email.

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