How to keep a record of every show you've ever seen
What is the best way to keep a record of every theatre show I've seen?
Log each show the night you see it with five things: the date, the performance time, the venue, your seat, and the cast at that performance. Playbills and ticket stubs preserve the souvenir but not the cast changes. A spreadsheet is flexible but takes effort to keep up. A tracking app does all five in one place.
Most people’s record of the theatre they’ve seen is a stack of Playbills and a vague memory. That works until you try to answer a specific question, like who played the lead that night, or how many times you saw the show.
What should the record include?
Five things per visit:
- Date
- Performance time. Matinee and evening casts often differ.
- Venue and city
- Seat
- The cast at that performance, covers included
Add a rating or a line of notes if you want it. The first four are easy to recover later from ticket emails. The fifth usually isn’t, so record it first. The understudy guide explains where to find it.
Playbills and ticket stubs
Keeps: the physical souvenir, the opening cast list, and the insert if a cover went on.
Loses: anything you didn’t save. Inserts fall out, stubs fade, and a shelf of programs can’t tell you how many times you’ve been or what you thought.
A spreadsheet
Keeps: whatever columns you decide on. Some fans prefer a spreadsheet, or a database tool like Airtable, for exactly this reason.
Loses: consistency. You type every show title and performer name by hand, and the record lasts only as long as you keep it updated.
A tracking app
Keeps: all five details in one place. Some apps can read the cast from a photo of your Playbill instead of making you type it. Your history is on your phone when you’re standing in the lobby.
Loses: your control over the format. Before you commit years of history to an app, check that it runs on your phone, iPhone or Android, and that it records cast per performance, not just per show.
Some people call this a theatre diary. Whatever you call it, the method is the same: one entry per performance, written that night.
The terms, side by side
- Performance
- One specific showing of a production, on a date and at a time. Keeping a record by performance rather than by show is what lets you capture who was onstage that night.
Frequently asked questions
How do I reconstruct a list of shows I saw years ago?
Start with what you kept: Playbills, ticket stubs, and photos. Then search your email for ticket confirmations, which usually carry the date, time, and seat. Your card statements can fill in the rest. The cast at that performance is the hardest detail to recover, so add it wherever an insert survives.
Should I count the same show twice if I saw it twice?
Yes, log each visit as a separate performance. Different nights usually mean a different cast, different seats, and a different opinion. A record that only says "seen" can't tell those visits apart.
Does this work for regional, touring, and West End shows?
Yes. Nothing about the method is specific to Broadway. Record the venue and the city, and treat a tour stop or a regional production as its own entry rather than folding it into the Broadway run.
What should I record about the cast?
At minimum, the principals and any covers who went on. The cast is what makes a performance unrepeatable, and it is the detail that disappears first. See the understudy guide for where to find it on the night.
Sources
- Goodreads equivalent for theater? (BroadwayWorld forum) BroadwayWorld Accessed