Getting Started

This guide walks a brand-new company through its first half hour in MusiCal: setting up the company itself, inviting the people who run shows with you, and creating the first production.

What MusiCal is

MusiCal is production-planning software for theatre companies — schools, community theatres, and professional companies — built around the way real shows actually run. Auditions, casting, rehearsal calendars, attendance, the program, the house. Everything that lives on a clipboard at intermission, in one place that everyone on the company can see.

The shape of it: a company owns one or more productions. A production has a catalog show (Newsies, Mamma Mia, an original work), a cast and crew, a rehearsal schedule, calendars (PDF and ICS) for the people called to each rehearsal, and an audition flow if you are casting from scratch.

Step 1 — Create your company

The first person from your organization to sign in becomes the company admin. Sign in at app.musicalendars.com with Google or Microsoft. On first sign-in you will be asked for:

• Company name — the legal or working name of your theatre. This appears on calendars, public audition forms, and the playbill.
• Time zone — the time zone your rehearsals are called in. Every rehearsal time you enter is interpreted in this zone.
• Logo (optional) — a square PNG or JPG. Used on the playbill and the audition form.

You can change all three later in Admin → Settings.

Step 2 — Invite your team

A theatre company is rarely one person. Once your company exists, invite the rest of the team from Admin → Users. For each person, you choose:

• Email address — they will sign in with this on Google or Microsoft.
• Hat — what they do for your company. Director, music director, choreographer, stage manager, technical director, costume designer, and so on. Hats determine what they can see and do; a stage manager and a costume designer have different views.

Each invitee receives an email with a link. Clicking it brings them into the company with the hats you assigned. Adding hats later is fine — most company members pick up new responsibilities over time.

Step 3 — Create your first production

From the dashboard, click New Production. You will be asked for:

• Show — pick from the catalog or enter a custom title. The catalog comes pre-loaded with characters, scenes, and ensemble structure for many common shows; a custom title lets you build all of that yourself.
• Key code — a short URL slug used for public audition forms and the playbill (for example, west-side-2026). It cannot be changed after the production is created, so pick something you will be comfortable seeing on a printed audition form.
• Performance dates — the dates of your run. These anchor the rehearsal calendar.
• Rehearsal days and times — your default rehearsal pattern. You can override individual days later.

When you click Create, MusiCal provisions the production with characters, scenes, an empty cast list, a draft rehearsal calendar built from your defaults, and an audition form ready to be customized. You will land on the production's home page.

What to do next

From here, the path branches based on whether you are casting or already cast:

• Casting from auditions? Read Auditions next.
• Already have your cast? Open the production's Cast tab, fill in the roles, and skip ahead to Running a Show.

Either way, Running a Show is the central reference for the day-to-day work of getting from first rehearsal to closing night.