Every Credit Counts: Why We're Building Parts Known

If you work in the performing arts, you probably have some version of this:

A PDF CV somewhere on your laptop
A headshot in your email drafts
A reel on Vimeo or YouTube
Some credits in a Word doc
Photos scattered across Instagram, WhatsApp and Google Drive

And every time you apply for something, you rebuild the same information in a slightly different format, hoping whoever reads it believes you actually did the work you say you did.

Parts Known exists because that isn't good enough.

Performing arts careers don't fit in a PDF

Most of us don't have neat, linear careers. We have:

Community shows and youth theatre
Scratch nights and student productions
Fringe festivals and low-paid tours
Concerts, cabarets, club gigs, readings and workshops
The occasional big-house or well-funded production

Some of it's paid, some of it isn't. Some of it's "professional", some of it lives in that grey zone that casting calls call "expenses only but great exposure".

From the outside, a CV line might just say:

HAMLET – Ophelia – 2023

But what it doesn't say is:

That it was a three-month tour in village halls calling your own tech
That you were doing fights, playing violin and operating a loop station
That you were the DSM, sound op and van driver all at once
Or that it was the first time your new play was allowed to exist in front of an audience

All of that experience is real. It deserves to be recorded properly.

Every credit should count – not just the "posh" ones

We've all heard versions of:

"Don't put amateur work on your CV."

"Leave the student shows off once you've done X."

"Only list major venues or paying jobs."

That advice comes from a world that can afford to pretend only certain paths are valid. It isn't how real performing-arts careers look, and it quietly erases a lot of the work people actually do.

Parts Known starts from a different place:

If you did the work, you can list the work.

Community shows, youth theatre, student work, fringe, festivals, tours, pub gigs, regional houses, West End, amateur dramatics, conservatoire projects – they all belong in your history.

We don't decide which credits "count". We just record them honestly and connect them to:

The work (play / musical / show)
The production or event
The group or company
The venue
The people who were there with you

That's what a credit is on Parts Known.

Verified work, not just self-reported CVs

Anyone can type anything into a PDF. That's part of the problem.

On Parts Known, when you add a credit, you're not just writing a line of text. You're saying:

"I did this role, on this production or event, of this work, at this venue, with these people, using these skills."

Over time, other people who were there can:

Verify that you really did that work
Recommend you for the skills they saw you use

Instead of a flat list of unverified bullet points, you get:

Verified credits
Skills tied to real contexts ("stage combat in a touring Shakespeare", "FOH mixing for live bands", "calling shows on cans in a 200-seat fringe venue")
A visible web of who has worked with whom, where and on what

Trust comes from the work and the community, not from a paywall.

One link instead of twenty attachments

Right now, applying for things often means:

Attaching a CV
Adding your headshot as a separate file
Pasting a reel link
Trying to cram context into a tiny box

Parts Known gives you a single link you can use as your main CV, with:

Credits across productions and events
Headshots, production photos, audio and video
Skills and experience in context
Reviews and testimonials
Works (if you write or compose) with production histories and licensing info

You can also create lenses – curated versions of your profile for different parts of your career:

"Actor-Musician"
"Scenic Designer"
"Drag Persona"
"Musical Theatre Writer"

Each lens is its own link, pulling from the same underlying credits, so you don't have to rebuild different CVs from scratch.

Not just for "pros"

Parts Known is for anyone who makes live performance happen:

Full-time professionals
Semi-pros with day jobs
Students
Committed hobbyists

If you care enough to do the work – whether it's community opera, youth theatre, a band in a tiny venue, or a mainstage production – you should have a way to record it and be found for it.

Your experience level is part of the picture, not a reason to exclude you. We'll happily show that you're:

Aspiring in directing
Semi-pro as a musician
Fully professional as a stage manager

Real careers are messy. The platform has to respect that.

Affordable, by design

We know how precarious performing-arts incomes are. Parts Known isn't here to be another landlord.

Core tools are free: profile, credits, skills, basic media.
Pro adds extras like lenses, personas, pretty URLs, extra media and multi-user group/venue management.

We will make deliberate, executive decisions to keep Pro as low-cost as possible. The platform should fit real performing-arts incomes, not landlord them.

During early access, the first 1,000 individuals, 250 groups and 100 venues who properly join get a full year of Pro free, no card required. After that, Pro is priced to be something a working artist can realistically keep up.

Where this is going

Right now, Parts Known is primarily:

A powerful, flexible portfolio
A way to record the productions, events and works you're part of
A growing archive of who did what, where, and with whom

As more people, venues and organisations add their work, it becomes much more:

Casting & talent search based on verified skills and real experience
Discovery of works to produce or license, complete with histories and reviews
A map of the performing-arts ecosystem that funders and advocates can actually point to

Imagine being able to genuinely search for:

"Hamlet in Hastings"
"a jazz trio in Leeds"
"youth companies that have staged Matilda Jr in the last three years"
"an actor-musician with verified stage combat who's done small-scale touring"

That's the direction we're heading in. It starts with people like you adding credits now.

Join as a Founding Member

We're in early access, and we're honest about that: you won't log in and find every casting director in the world already here.

But you will get:

A proper home for your work
A link you can start using in applications straight away
A chance to help shape the infrastructure this industry actually needs

If you're one of the first 1,000 people, 250 groups or 100 venues to properly join and add genuine work, you'll also get Pro free for a year and a Founding Member badge as a thank-you.

Every credit you add doesn't just help you – it strengthens the shared record of the work we're all making together.