STAGECRAFT
The amateur stage — sets, lights, and the craft of community theatre.
From checking your sightlines and scheduling rehearsal time to matching lighting gels, budgeting props, timing your script, and gridding the stage for blocking, StageCraft pairs free hands-on calculators with practical guides and a richly illustrated museum. Built for the volunteer stage manager, the first-time director, and the community theatre crew doing it all at once.
Stagecraft Calculators & Tools
Free tools for community and amateur theatre — sightline & riser calculator, rehearsal scheduler, lighting gel calculator, prop budget planner, script runtime timer, and blocking grid generator.
Sightline & Riser Calculator
Work out how much each row of raked or platformed seating needs to step up so every seat clears the head of the row in front.
Rehearsal Scheduler
Split the rehearsal hours you actually have across your scenes, in proportion to how much stage time each one needs.
Lighting Gel Color Temperature Calculator
Get the mired shift between two color temperatures and a suggested CTO or CTB correction strength.
Prop Budget Planner
Add up your prop list with a contingency built in, and see how the total compares to your production budget.
Script Runtime Timer
Estimate how long a script runs on stage from its page count, using the page-a-minute rule.
Blocking Grid Generator
Turn your stage's width and depth into a labelled grid of numbered squares to mark blocking notes onto.
Stagecraft Heritage Museum
Wander an immersive museum of the traditions behind the stage — theatre masks and makeup, the historic playhouses that shaped how we build theatres today, commedia dell’arte and world theatre traditions, and the puppetry and marionette arts, each in its own gallery, so you can get to know the stories behind the craft: where each tradition came from, and the role it still plays in performance today.
Tour the museum →From the Journal
Fresh guides on rehearsal planning, lighting design, set and prop building, and directing craft, plus practical tips for running a community theatre production start to finish.
Sightlines and Risers: A Beginner's Guide for Community Theatre
Why the back row always seems to have the worst seat in the house, and a practical method for figuring out how tall your risers actually need to be.
Blocking 101: Reading and Writing a Stage Grid
Stage directions like upstage-left and downstage-right only make sense once you understand where they come from — here's how to read a blocking grid and use one to record your own show.
Building a Rehearsal Schedule That Actually Gets You to Opening Night
A weekly rehearsal calendar looks simple until you try to fit every scene, every actor's availability, and a tech week into it — here's a method for splitting your hours sensibly.
Gels, Color Temperature, and Stage Lighting Basics
Why your LED fixtures look a different color than your old fresnels, what a mired shift actually is, and how to pick a correction gel without a professional lighting designer on staff.
How to Budget Props for a Community Theatre Production
Prop costs have a way of creeping past what you planned for — a practical approach to listing, pricing, and protecting your production's prop budget from surprises.
The Page-a-Minute Rule: Estimating Your Show's Runtime
Directors have used a simple rule of thumb to estimate a script's stage time for decades — where it comes from, when it breaks down, and how to use it responsibly.
Keep Learning
Plain-language explainers on the building blocks of stagecraft — rehearsal and directing process, lighting and sound basics, sets, props, and costumes, and the wider performance traditions that shape how a show comes together — everything you need to go deeper with confidence.
Visit the Learn hub →