Musical theatre fans will be able to get a little closer to their favourite shows and performers through the new website Stage Faves.com.
The brainchild of WhatsOnStage founder Terri Paddock, the site aims to build a new musical theatre community on-line by gathering all social media related to every current West End show in one easily accessible place. Fans will be offered immediate access to everything they need to know about their favourite shows and performers, while performers in turn, will be able to log in and update their details and engage directly with their fans.
Explaining the inspiration for her latest project, Paddock says: “Last year, an Olivier Award-winning musical theatre actor complained to me that she wasn’t getting cast because she wasn’t active on Twitter. Instead of commiserating, my immediate reaction was: ‘well, get on Twitter!’ I firmly believe that social media levels the playing field as a marketing and fan engagement tool for performers.
“Then I started thinking about how, as a fan myself, I’m so often frustrated by not being able to find casts, and all their connections, online. By building the Stage Faves platform, I wanted to make it much much easier for fans to find, champion and support the musical theatre performers they love – and discover new ones as well.”
The website promises access to: ‘Updated daily rankings by Twitter, Facebook and total fan reach; live Twitter and Facebook feeds for all accounts; all of a show’s social media and links on one page; full cast lists with verified Twitter handles of performers; more than 700 and growing individual musical theatre performer pages, including agent details and contact information; all of a performer’s social media and key links on one page; performer-centric West End ticketing; personalised fan merchandise for every performer; and an opportunity to help add to and refine the constantly expanding database.’
Although initially focusing on current West End musicals, the plan is to expand the database to cover Off-West End and UK touring musicals.
Terri Paddock founded WhatsOnStage and the WhatsOnStage Awards, running the company and its events from 1996 to 2013. Since leaving, she has continued to blog at www.terripaddock.com, tweet @TerriPaddock and comment on theatre matters in the national press, while also providing Twitter training, social media strategy and content marketing for a range of theatre clients.
In March 2015, with The Stage joint chief critic Mark Shenton, Paddock founded My Theatre Mates (www.mytheatremates.com, @MyTheatreMates), a portal for independent theatre bloggers, and launched the online Also Recognised Awards, resurrecting too-often overlooked theatrical awards categories including the UK’s first-ever prize for Best Musical Direction.
Angela Thomas
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