Community theater in the United States is enormous and almost invisible. There are an estimated 7,000+ community theaters producing several full seasons each year — and almost none of them share a common channel for casting. Listings live on Facebook groups, Google Forms, theater websites, scattered email blasts, and local arts council pages. Actors miss calls. Theaters under-cast. Every season, shows go up with empty seats in the ensemble.
We started RepBook because we lived the problem. The first version was a Sunday-afternoon spreadsheet shared between a few of us in a New Mexico theater scene. The second version was a scraper that pulled audition notices from the websites we trusted. The third version was a mobile app with a clean feed and proper search.
What we believe
Community theater is one of the last remaining places where non-professionals practice a live art form, in person, with strangers who become a company. We believe the technology around it should be simple, trustworthy, and warm.
We are not building a marketplace. We are building a directory. The shows are the product.
What we’re building now
- An iOS app that lists every audition we can find, near you, sorted by relevance — not by who paid to be at the top.
- A free theater profile so producers can claim their listing, correct details, and get more applicants.
- A long, slow effort to pull the entire space into one place — respectfully, with credit.
What’s next
Android. A web companion. Email digests. Filling in the smaller theaters our scrapers don’t reach yet. We’re a small team and we’re moving deliberately. If you’d like to talk — about a theater you run, a feature you wish existed, or just to say hi — please write us.