Non-profit and education discounts availableSee pricing →
For community theaters

Community theater software that respects your budget.

Volunteer-run, tight margins, serious about the work. Cuelora is priced so the Caption System pays for itself in two or three shows, and Submissions replaces the audition-weekend spreadsheet for the cost of a streaming subscription.

Season overview
Season · 3 productions · 1 volunteer casting chair
● ACTIVE
01
You Can't Take It With You
Fall mainstage · Oct 15 – 25
Captioning setup
02
Our Town
Winter mainstage · Feb 6 – 15
Auditioning
03
Mamma Mia!
Spring musical · May 1 – 10
Planned
Before and after

The operational shift.

Most community theaters already have a patchwork of tools. Here's what changes.

Without Cuelora

Three tools, two spreadsheets, one headache

  • A Google Form with 47 tabs, nicknamed 'the beast,' that the casting chair inherited in 2019
  • PDF scripts printed and handed to a volunteer to retype into a captioning app (that charges per show)
  • Callbacks run by passing a laptop around a dining-room table, notes lost in a group text
  • Accessibility offered 'by request only' because captioning every show was too expensive
  • One missing spreadsheet column costs you an actor who got cast in two shows the same weekend
With Cuelora

One surface, clean data, predictable cost

  • One link to share: actors submit headshot, resume, and self-tape in five minutes
  • Caption System imports the script once — future seasons reuse the same pipeline
  • Callbacks run in a single browser tab, panel rates privately, consensus shows up automatically
  • Every show captioned every night, no extra cost, no extra tech load
  • Season-wide conflict detection so nobody gets double-cast by accident
Why Cuelora fits

Three things we do differently for community theaters.

Budget-aware pricing

Caption System Core: perpetual license, one-time. With the non-profit discount applied at checkout, the license typically pays back after a couple of accessibility-funded shows. Submissions Troupe: monthly subscription flat — no per-audition charge, ever.

Volunteers can run it

Caption System installs on any Windows laptop. Submissions is simple enough that a volunteer casting chair can run it the week they start. No consultant required, no trainer required.

Grant-ready accessibility

The same accessibility reports that regional theaters submit to NEA and state arts councils — available to you on the Pro license. Quiet, easy wins for small-grant applications and disability-community partnerships.

A typical season

How Cuelora runs alongside your calendar.

Real workflow for a typical community production season — not a sales pitch, just the timing.

1
Week 1

Open the call

Casting chair posts the call from their kitchen table. Shareable link goes in the Facebook group, the high school drama teacher's inbox, and the church bulletin.

2
Week 2

Collect the submissions

Actors upload in the browser. No app, no account. By Friday the casting chair has 180 submissions, a first-pass dashboard, and clean data to hand to the director.

3
Week 3

Callbacks

Saturday morning, five-person panel, one laptop. Everyone rates privately on their phone. Consensus rankings appear in real time. Decisions done by lunch.

4
Week 6

Opening night · captioned

Laptop in the booth runs Caption System. Patrons scan a QR code in the program, pick their language, and read along. Cost: zero additional.

What's included

Built for the community-theater reality.

Caption System Core

perpetual license (non-profit discount available). Unlimited shows, offline at showtime, your license forever.

Submissions Troupe

monthly subscription (non-profit discount available). Unlimited submissions, 3 users, actor portal, basic scheduling, email support.

BYOD patron experience

Patrons use their own phones — no hardware to buy, no tablets to store, no charging station to set up. QR code in the playbill gets them to captions.

Cancel anytime

Submissions is month-to-month. No minimum commitment. If you only need it for audition season, stop it in between — pick back up when the next season opens.

Founder answers support

Not a tiered ticket queue. The same person who built the software answers your email when something confuses you. Usually same business day.

Runs on gear you already own

Most modern Windows laptops handle the Caption System. Any smartphone that loads a webpage handles the patron side. No hardware budget required.

What we designed for

Volunteer-run theaters running a full season on a part-time operations chair, no IT department, and a hardware budget of zero. Captioning should work with a laptop you already own, and auditions should work without inheriting a spreadsheet every time the casting chair rotates.

Pricing math

Typical community-theater setup, by the numbers.

Caption System Core
Perpetual license · one-time purchase, one venue
TBA
Submissions Troupe
Month-to-month · pause between audition seasons
monthly subscription
Budget note: Non-profit discount available at checkout. The Caption System license is a one-time purchase — after it is paid off, ongoing cost is only the Submissions subscription, which you can pause during off-seasons.
Common questions

Before you talk to us.

We only audition once a year. Can we pause Submissions?

Yes. The Troupe plan is month-to-month. Run it during your audition window, cancel it after, start it again next year. Your historical data stays in your account.

Do we need a dedicated audio or video operator?

No. Caption System is designed to be run by the stage manager or an assistant stage manager — same person who calls the show already. One laptop, spacebar to advance, done.

What if our volunteer casting chair leaves?

All casting data is exportable any time. Succession is a copy-paste operation, not a migration project. You can even transfer the Submissions subscription to a new primary contact without losing history.

Our theater has 85 seats. Is this overkill?

No. The Caption System was designed with venues of 50–300 seats specifically in mind. If anything, small houses get more out of it because every patron in the building is within Wi-Fi reach.

We barely have an IT person. How complicated is setup?

Download an installer, double-click it, enter your license key. That's the whole install. A volunteer who can install Zoom can install the Caption System.

Keep reading

Related to your operation.

Your venue

See Cuelora in your house.

Book a 20-minute walkthrough with the founder. We will show you the pieces that matter for your specific operation — and tell you straight if we are not the right fit.