Broadway shows turning to iPads to simplify production & cut down on waste

Lagging behind some other industries, stage shows on New York City's Broadway and elsewhere are finally beginning to turn to tablets — specifically the iPad — to replace giant stacks of paper.

To this day, many directors and stage managers are carrying around production books that can weigh as much as 10 pounds, according to CNN. But some Broadway shows like "Kinky Boots" and "Pretty Woman" are reportedly moving to an iPad app called ProductionPro, which merges scripts and lyrics with videos and other production material. The software is also being used at firms like Disney to shoot film and TV, and at some 400 U.S. high schools for their theater departments.

Users can do things like add margin notes with a stylus, but one of the primary advantages is pushing updates to cast and crew instantly without wasting thousands of pages of paper.

In the case of "Pretty Woman," the show was updating roughly 30 pages per day during 12 weeks of pre-production, and those pages had to be shared with some 50 people. Stage manager Thomas Recktenwald is now using ProductionPro, an iPad Pro, and an Apple Pencil, and the show even has videos with the blocking for each scene.

One drawback to the app is its cost. While it can technically be used for free, that's limited to a single production, 1 gigabyte of cloud storage, and a 250-megabyte cap on filesizes. Commercial operations must effectively spring for a Premium plan that costs $19.99 per month.

A number of businesses have switched to iPads to reduce paper burdens. One of the earlier adopters was the airline industry, which used iPads to replace heavy pilot bags full of charts.

12 Comments

soundsinamotion 91 comments · 14 Years

About 6 years ago

My question unfortunately would be, wasting paper is much cheaper than buying iPads for the whole production crew and cast members. While I am 100% for saving paper this just seems like an overly expensive way to waste money rather than paper.

racerhomie3 1264 comments · 7 Years

I thought according to Ben Tompson, productivity apps could not be sustained on the App Store. Is this an outlier to the norm or is the subscription model working?

KirbyFitBoston 12 comments · 6 Years

soundsinamotion said:

My question unfortunately would be, wasting paper is much cheaper than buying iPads for the whole production crew and cast members. While I am 100% for saving paper this just seems like an overly expensive way to waste money rather than paper.

This article was terribly misinformed. Perhaps a Bway show Stage Manager can use an iPad but that’s not where the black hole of paper waste lives.

Far and away away the largest waste is incidental sheet music for every part in the orchestra multiples over every musician playing their respective parts and that music is distributed as a work right contracted by the music union AGVA? I can’t recall... Actor’s aren’t allowe in and no where in the professional music world - no where - is iPad replacing the mass produced orchestral parts in a bway show or a ballet or in opera - it’s apart of the culture and the union will often stipulate that the music come prepared in a certain way and that way is never digital.

Also the only reason there would need to be 20 pages of changes to a show in technical preview is if it sucked and was flawed. That’s long past the time where Cast or Crew would be able to do anything with 20 new pages ... notes ? Sure. There almost always dictated by the director at the performance to the stage manager who then may Or may not use an iPad to distribute them but more than likely they get typed and put on a cork board with a highlight next to ur role or job with the note. They’re rarely even discussed it’s just expected to always be the new way the time... Or you get fired. iPad would him that process up. Stage managers are cranky and stress out folk... I cannot see a day where Tablet’s make headway into this works and supplant a digital master cue list...

Lastly19$ is nothing for a bway show. A bway show makes zero profit on average each week if it can’t clear a million a week. Period. Some easily do this - pretty woman had a very successful PreSale but now it’s hot garbage and they won’t need to worry about apps or iPads... if it doesn’t close and goes on tour perhaps this iPad story will start a trend. But it’s gonna close and lose a lot of money.

KinkyBoots has a gabillion cues and makes a fortune each week so maybe they’ve given iPads to the backstage folk. The Actor’s wouldn’t have free iPads for sure and the musicians would look down on it ...

there are some professional piano accompanists that won’t freak out if you bring an iPad in to an audition in nyc but most would ask for sheet music or decline to play. Seen it happen.

Its cultural. Backstage lends itself to the dork universe - and I’m sure outside a pit musicians use iPads but more than 50% carry both to a gig in case something happens. iPads aren’t paper and paper doesn’t need charging.

Soli 9981 comments · 9 Years

soundsinamotion said:

My question unfortunately would be, wasting paper is much cheaper than buying iPads for the whole production crew and cast members. While I am 100% for saving paper this just seems like an overly expensive way to waste money rather than paper.

I don't see how the numbers don't work out in favor for digital distribution over all the printing that needs to be done and slowly distributed. Would you classify email or any text messaging as being more costly than printing out letters to people to send via snail mail, even if excluding the cost of postage from the scenario? And that's just for one person and this would be for, in the given example, 30 rewrites per day, for 12 weeks, for 50 people, which will then lead into another project either using company iPads (which users may be responsible for if lost, stolen, or broken) or using their own iPad.

michael scrip 1916 comments · 13 Years

soundsinamotion said:

My question unfortunately would be, wasting paper is much cheaper than buying iPads for the whole production crew and cast members. While I am 100% for saving paper this just seems like an overly expensive way to waste money rather than paper.

I think this has more to do with convenience rather than just paper-reduction.

As the article said... the production "Pretty Woman" was updating 30 pages per day... for 12 weeks (84 days)... among 50 people.

You're right... paper is cheap. But distributing 126,000 pieces of paper over 3 months is a pain in the ass. And there could be errors/delays if some people see the new pages and others don't.

But with this method... all 50 people would see the updates instantly on their iPads. And they can incorporate music and video in addition to hand-written notes.

Yes... 50 iPads aren't cheap. $329 minimum buy-in. Plus Apple Pencil. Plus AppleCare. Plus a case. You could be spending $550 per person.

That's $28,000. But at least the production company can keep using the iPads for future productions.

It might sound expensive... but so is time lost if everyone isn't on the same page due to errors and/or miscommunications.

Again... I don't think this is necessarily about saving paper... it's about having a smooth production.

The $28,000 cost of iPads isn't even that high on the list. To put it into perspective... the production "Kinky Boots" spent $150,000 on just hair and makeup. (1.1% of their $13.5 million budget)

And they spent $350,000 on just the costumes (2.5% of their $13.5 million budget)

Suddenly those iPads don't sound too bad... :)