Your Plays and Musicals Deserve a Proper Home

If you write for the stage, you probably have some combination of:

Drafts in Google Docs
PDFs buried in email threads
A website that's always "nearly finished"
A list of productions and readings in your head (or on a spreadsheet from 2017)
A sense that people only ever see your latest piece, not the body of work

Directors, companies and schools often struggle to answer basic questions:

"What else have you written?"
"Has this had a production yet?"
"Is this available to license?"
"Do you have any shorter pieces / smaller casts / youth-friendly shows?"

Parts Known is not just for performers. It's also a place for writers, composers and makers of work to organise their plays, musicals and pieces properly.

The problem: works scattered everywhere

Right now, a lot of writers live in a weird limbo:

Your CV lists a few highlights.
Your website (if it exists) is half-updated.
People hear about a play of yours and have to email you:

- "Has this been done before?"

- "Can we read it?"

- "Who do we contact about rights?"

On top of that:

Readings, workshops, scratch nights and student productions often never make it into any formal record at all.
Press quotes and reviews are scattered across PDFs and screenshots.

That makes it harder for:

Programmers and producers to discover your work.
Schools and youth theatres to find suitable plays.
You to see your own body of work clearly.

Works are first-class citizens on Parts Known

On Parts Known, you don't just exist as "a writer with credits." Your works have a home of their own.

A Work is:

A play
A musical
A concert piece or song cycle
A devised show or performance text
A cabaret or stand-up show
Anything that can be produced or licensed

Each work gets its own page, where you can include:

Basic info

Title
Type (play, musical, piece, etc.)
Synopsis and themes
Running time / length
Cast size and doubling
Band/orchestration or instrumentation
Age guidance and content notes

Production history

Premieres and later productions
Tours and revivals
Readings, staged readings, workshops, scratch nights
Student / youth / amateur productions

Media and press

Stills, posters, trailers
Press quotes and reviews
Awards and nominations

Licensing information

"Available for licensing" badge
How to contact you or your licensing house
Notes on amateur vs professional rights, where applicable

Instead of answering the same questions repeatedly in email, you can just send a link.

Readings, workshops and "nearly there" pieces count too

Part of the reason many writers don't keep detailed public records is shame: "it was just a reading", "it was only a student production", "it was a scratch night".

We don't buy that.

Every step in a work's life is valuable:

That scratch night where you discovered the ending
The uni production that tried the show with a totally different cast makeup
The youth theatre staging that proved the piece can work with 30 teenagers and a keyboard
The tiny festival try-out that gave you your first review

On Parts Known, you can tag productions as:

Full productions
Readings / staged readings
Workshops / labs / developments
Scratch / excerpts
Student / youth / community runs

They all sit on the same timeline for the work, so someone exploring it can see:

"This has had a full production here, two readings there, and a youth staging last year."

That's much more informative than a single vague line on a CV.

Licensing made simpler (and more honest)

Licensing is often a fog:

Some pieces are fully repped by a major agency.
Some are self-licensed.
Some are "I'll email you a script and we'll sort it out".

On Parts Known you can signal, very clearly, work-by-work:

Available for licensing
Licensed via [Agency] (with a link)
By arrangement only / "Currently not available"

A programmer or teacher looking at a work page can immediately see:

Whether they're allowed to enquire
Who to talk to
Rough scale / suitability of the piece

You still control the rights and the decisions. Parts Known just makes it easier for the right people to find and approach you.

Connecting works to people, places and companies

Because Parts Known is built on credits, a work page isn't just floating in space. It's connected to:

Productions and events

Who directed them
Who performed in them
Where they happened

Groups and venues

Companies that have staged the work
Venues and festivals that have hosted it

Collaborators

Co-writers, composers, lyricists, arrangers
Designers, choreographers, MDs, etc.

That means someone browsing can follow the threads:

"Who else has worked on this?"
"What scale venues has it played?"
"Has this writer worked with any companies I know?"

And as the archive grows, you'll be able to search things like:

Plays for 3–5 actors, mostly female roles
Musicals with small bands suitable for drama schools
Pieces that have already been tested with youth companies

We're not all the way there yet—but the structure is in place.

What this looks like in practice

Imagine you're a musical theatre writer with:

A small-cast chamber musical
A big ensemble youth show
A handful of short pieces

On Parts Known you can:

1. Create a work page for each piece.

2. Add synopses, cast sizes, orchestrations and age ranges.

3. Log past productions and readings:

- The fringe premiere of the chamber show

- The youth theatre staging of the big ensemble piece

- The concert performance of your short songs

4. Paste in press quotes and reviews where they exist.

5. Mark which works are available for licensing and how.

Then, when someone asks:

"What else have you written?"
"Do you have anything for a cast of 20 teenagers?"
"Can we license your show?"

…you send them straight to the relevant work page.

Why writers and composers belong here even before the network is big

You might be thinking:

"This all sounds good, but are producers actually using Parts Known yet?"

Honest answer: we're in early access. You won't log in tomorrow and see every literary manager in the country searching here. Not yet.

But you still get real value now if you:

Use Parts Known as the official home for your works.
Keep production histories and press in one place (instead of scattered docs).
Share those links on your website, in submissions and in your email signature.
Connect your works to the people, venues and companies you've already collaborated with.

As more companies, venues and schools join, they'll be discovering a landscape of works that already has structure, context and history.

You'll also be among the first writers whose catalogue is visible in that way.

Founding Members: a year of Pro for writers

Because works really come alive when you can:

Add multiple pieces
Upload media
Connect them to detailed credits
Build lenses that show just your writing/composing side

…we're including writers in our Founding Member offer:

First 1,000 individuals who join and add at least one genuine credit get Pro free for 12 months, no card required.
First 250 groups and 100 venues that set up properly get Pro free for a year too.
All of them get a Founding Member badge and a locked-in low Pro price afterwards.

If you're a playwright, composer, lyricist or musical-theatre writer, that means:

A year to build out proper pages for your works
A chance to help shape how work discovery and licensing tools evolve
A platform you can use now as your main catalogue link

Give your work a home that can grow with it

If you have plays or pieces that only exist as filenames and old emails, they deserve better.

Create a free profile, add a work or two, and start building the record of your writing life as it actually is: messy, evolving, full of steps and experiments that all count.