Open Forum

I am looking for information on how digital Programs is working for other schools. Are you getting a lot of pushback? Are you completely digital with no programs at all? Are you having issues with phones lighting up the auditorium during the show? Thanks.

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I understand the reasons why many theatres today are using digital programs, and they're perfectly valid.  Consider this, however: I don't own a mobile phone, and while I'm not John Q. Everyone, I'm not alone, either.  (Life is much simpler back here in the Cretaceous Period, barring the occasional T-Rex attack.)  Just because mobiles seem to have become ubiquitous doesn't mean that everyone has one.  When I go to events these days where people, organizations, and businesses have digitized things using QR codes for phones to scan, I'm astonished at how often - when I point out that I don't have a mobile, and politely ask what their work-around is - they don't have one.  Often, they'll say in confusion, "You don't have a phone?" - as if it's utterly incomprehensible.  Yes, I have a phone.  It's a land-line, and it's at home, and it's all that I need.  Use the digital stuff if you want to, because it will work for a majority of your audience, but always have a non-digital work-around for people like me.  We'll appreciate it!

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Jeff Grove
Theatre Teacher, Aesthetics Department Chair
Stanton College Prep
FL
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I do not like digital programs. I do have mobile phone but I do not want to look at it during a show! I have a friend who drives me crazy looking at her phone to check the program during the show!!!! And she is not the only one.  I also agree with having to have a work around for people with no phones 

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Cathy Archer
EdTA Member or Troupe Director
Rutland High School
VT
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Original Message:
Sent: 10-18-2023 11:29
From: Jeff Grove
Subject: Digital Playbill

I understand the reasons why many theatres today are using digital programs, and they're perfectly valid.  Consider this, however: I don't own a mobile phone, and while I'm not John Q. Everyone, I'm not alone, either.  (Life is much simpler back here in the Cretaceous Period, barring the occasional T-Rex attack.)  Just because mobiles seem to have become ubiquitous doesn't mean that everyone has one.  When I go to events these days where people, organizations, and businesses have digitized things using QR codes for phones to scan, I'm astonished at how often - when I point out that I don't have a mobile, and politely ask what their work-around is - they don't have one.  Often, they'll say in confusion, "You don't have a phone?" - as if it's utterly incomprehensible.  Yes, I have a phone.  It's a land-line, and it's at home, and it's all that I need.  Use the digital stuff if you want to, because it will work for a majority of your audience, but always have a non-digital work-around for people like me.  We'll appreciate it!

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Jeff Grove
Theatre Teacher, Aesthetics Department Chair
Stanton College Prep
FL
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We have not gone totally digital and probably won't for a very long time, if ever. I also run our district's performing arts center and our choir director went all digital last year and we had so many complaints (some very belligerent). So, we tried offering both paper and digital and only had two people scan the QR code out of over 200 people. So, this year in order to still save paper, but also share pictures and bios we are going to a traditional one piece folded program with a QR code on the back to the complete, multi-page Playbill style program with photos, bios, dramaturg notes, etc. 

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Carmen Caldera-Brzoska
Elizabethtown High School
KY
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