Maintenance
Part of 5 things a run asks of stage and broadway actors
How to Track Credits in a Stage and Broadway Actors List
A stage and Broadway actors list: learn how to separate a production from a play, track cast changes, and document the dates behind each credit.
A film is finished once. A stage production is remade every night for as long as it runs, and its cast changes while it runs. A stage and Broadway actors list has to account for those changes: two carefully made lists can disagree about who was in the same show because they may cover different points in the run.
This page is about building a list of stage credits that knows its own limits. It contains no credits and names no one.
What to take away
- The unit of a stage index is the production, not the play. Revivals, transfers and tours are separate productions of one title.
- A production's cast is a sequence, not a setan opening cast, replacements, understudies who went on, standbys and swings. Decide which of those your list records and say so.
- The program handed out at the door is the production's own record. Build from it, and date every entry to the performances it covers.
Play versus production
One title can have been produced dozens of times. The original production, a revival decades later, a transfer of that revival to another city, a touring version, a production in another language. Each has its own producer, its own theater, its own opening date and its own cast, and a credit belongs to one of them.
So the list's first field is the production, identified by producer, theater and opening date. A credit that says only the title of the play is not yet a credit.
A cast is a sequence
| Cast category | How it appears in the record | Whether most lists include it |
|---|---|---|
| Opening cast | The program from opening night; the reviews | Always, and often nothing else |
| Replacement | An announcement; a reprinted program; a new cast list in the theater's archive | Sometimes, and inconsistently |
| Understudy who went on | A slip inserted in that night's program, and the stage manager's report | Rarely, because the slip is the only public trace |
| Standby | Listed in the program as covering a specific lead | Sometimes, often without noting whether they performed |
| Swing | Listed in the program as covering several tracks | Rarely, and usually without the tracks |
| Workshop or reading cast | A separate program, or none at all | Almost never, and it is a different kind of credit |
The page on rehearsal and the eight-show week explains why covers exist and why they go on. For the list, the point is that a production's cast on its last night may share few names with its first, and both are true.
The program as primary record
The program, or playbill, is printed by the production for the audience, close to the performances it describes, and it changes when the cast changes. That makes it the equivalent of a film's credit roll, with one difference: there are many versions of it across a run, and a database usually transcribed the first.
Theater archives, producers' records and library collections of programs hold later versions. For Broadway credits, the Internet Broadway Database (IBDB), maintained by The Broadway League, is a useful starting point, while the New York Public Library's Billy Rose Theatre Division is a named collection to consult. A dated program can help confirm which cast appears in a particular version.
A list that wants completeness about a run must work through them; one that cannot should say it records opening casts only. Both are honest; only the unstated one is wrong.
Dating a stage credit
A production has a first preview, an opening night and a closing date. A performer has dates inside it: the night they joined, the night they left, the nights a cover went on for them.
Dating a stage credit
- First previewProduction begins performances
- Opening nightPress and official cast list
- Performer joinsTheir start date inside the run
- Cover goes onA single night, slip only
- Performer leavesTheir end date inside the run
- Closing dateProduction ends
Record the performer's dates within the production, not the production's dates, whenever the source allows. If only the program is available, record the program's date and say the credit is attested for that date.
The same principle governs periods, and the page on why an era belongs to a production rather than a person applies it across a whole career. A run that moved theaters is one production in two venues, with a date for the move.
Why two stage lists disagree
One records opening casts and the other includes replacements. One counts a tour as the same production as the original, the other as a separate one.
One includes the workshop cast, the other starts at the first preview. One transcribed a database, the other read the programs. And one has a performer down as a cover who did go on, while the other has them as a cover who did not, because the only record of the difference was a slip of paper.
Verifying a claimed stage credit
Ask for the production: the theater, the producer, the dates. Then check the program in the theater's archive or a library collection. Then ask the producer or theater, which keep cast records after the run.
A stage manager's reports would settle who went on, but they are not public. A claim they would support cannot be verified without them.
Theater awards, where they exist, come from a voter seeing one performance on one night. The page on how award bodies decide explains this. A nomination recorded from the body's own list is a separate fact from the credit.
The fixed, single credit roll film provides, described on how a film performance is assembled, is exactly what a stage list can never have. That is the reason for everything above.
Common questions
Does an understudy who never went on have the credit?
They have a credit as understudy for that production, and the list should record it as that. Recording it as the role is a different claim, and a false one.
Is a reading or a workshop a credit?
A different kind of credit, recorded as a reading or a workshop, attached to the production it preceded if one followed.
The tour and the original: one entry or two?
Two productions, linked by title, each with its own cast sequence and dates.
Where do I look for the cast of a production that closed years ago?
The theater's archive, the producer, and library collections of programs. The programs are the record; everything else is a copy of one of them.
