Okay, here's the run through on how to add a show to our database. We like things to be added in a certain order because one thing feeds off of others and if you put in one thing before you put in another thing you have to then go back to the one thing to link it to the new thing and before you know it everything's in chaos and dogs and cats are living together in sin.

For the visual sort, there's a chart at the bottom of this page showing how everything connects to one another, so you can be further confused!

It's not that complicated if you just follow things step by step. And our first step is....

STEP ONE:

Check to see if it's already in our database.

Yup. Go ahead and click on it and search for the name, or at least a keyword or two. It's a Good Thing to Do. Duplicate records won't be very helpful, huh? Just confuse folks.

If you don't find a particular show in our database, that means it's up for grabs! Time to move on to....

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STEP TWO:

Gather your materials! (not a link, by the way)

Here's the information you need to input a show. It's best to have them handy before you start putting stuff in, just to make the process easier for you.

You'll need:

1. The show title (duh!)
2. The creative team--author(s), bookwriter(s), composer(s) and/or lyricist(s)--enough bio material so you can create star pages for each of them
3. How many boys/How many girls (which can probably be found when you find the next item, which is...)
4. Who owns the rights (with a website URL if you can get it!)
5. A brief (one-paragraph) synopsis saying what the show's about
6. Intended audience--a "best guess" here, based on the movie industry's ratings system
7. A list of all the characters, and
8. A list of all the songs (if applicable), and who sings them.

Got everything? Then you're ready to go to the next step, which is...

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STEP THREE:

Make "Star" pages for the author(s).

Okay, so maybe this will give you a taste of how tedious the process can be. Once lots of people are in the database it won't be so hard, trust me. It's good to get this out of the way so the authors--by that we mean the playwright, lyricist, composer, and/or bookwriter--will get credited for their work on the various shows and productions. Your reward for all your hard work now will be later on, trust me!

Okay, you're back! And you've done your author "star" pages! Now on to bigger and better things, like.....

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STEP FOUR:

CLICK HERE to input your basic show, (it will open in a new window) and then come back here when you're done!

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Okay! Now that you've input your basic show (you've done that, right? I mean, it's really pointless to go on if you haven't) now it's time for...

STEP FIVE:

Input ALL YOUR CHARACTERS.

Yup, all of 'em, one at a time. Close each window and come back here and click again to create a new one. Tedious, but you only have to do it once. You'll be linking each character back to the show you have (already) input.(Which is why you should have the show already there, huh? Otherwise you'd have to come back and link them up to do it proper.)

The characters all link to the show, and if it's a musical and they're all singing their lungs out, you then want to input....

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STEP SIX:

Input ALL THE SONGS.

Why save the best for last? Because our songs link to both the show AND the characters that sing them. Again, you'll need to close each window and come back here and click again to create a new one when you're done inputting your info for each song.

Don't worry right now about media links. Theoretically (if people do this right!) the media won't exist unless the song already exists. The media links to the song and will show up on the song's record automatically, without you having to do anything here.

That's it! Your show's ready to go! Now you'll want to input all your Stars and/or Theater Companies.....

Oh, and the chart! Here's the chart that shows how everything gets inter-related. You can't say we didn't warn you!