How to Communicate with your Cast and Crew without Complications

We did a show recently, and we asked our actors how best to reach them.

"Does everyone check email?"

"Not very often," some actors said.

"What if we made a Facebook group?" we asked.

Not that, either. Someone said Facebook was social media for older people. Use Instagram for the younger cast members. If only there were an APP for that. Luckily, those young people in Silicon Valley have our back, and there are many APP options where you can communicate, coordinate, and commiserate easily with your entire cast and crew.

BAND

Don't let its cliquey name deter you; all arts programs use this one. It's a great group communication app, and some of its features include a community board, shared calendar, polls, to-do lists that you can assign to certain members, private chats, etc. It's an easy way to share rehearsal schedules (and real-time changes to rehearsal schedules), and the private chat feature is nice so that people aren't getting spammed by group texts.

Google Classroom

You don't have to be a teacher to use this. It creates a "classroom" of all your members and allows you to have group communication and make "assignments" to individuals or groups of people, and it's automatically compatible with a group Google Drive, Google Docs, Google Calendar (for real-time rehearsal schedules), Google Survey, etc.

Remind

This is more for group communication privately; it has a seamless system for sharing files from Google Drive, Zoom, Photos, and voice clips. You can send assignments, schedules, script changes, or costuming ideas through here, but it's mainly a communication app.

After your cast and crew pull off the most spectacular Medieval or Jazz Dinner in high school history, don't forget to give them a heartfelt "Thank you." Thanking your volunteers and crew goes a long way toward making future productions perform flawlessly.

If you are really a stickler about being authentic, you can always get yourself some carrier pigeons. I have found actors don't ignore those either. But then you have to feed them and clean up after them, and they just don't get as many likes. Your best bet is to embrace the youthful ways and coordinate your dinner efforts through a shiny new app.