CANOPY for the solo theater teacher

CANOPY for the working theater artist.

One studio, one teacher, every tool. Private students, the Saturday workshop, the single drama program. Director’s notes instead of letter grades. Class packs that decrement on attendance. The showcase program built from the season you already logged. Your studio’s name on the door, your data in your own Google Workspace.

An empty rehearsal hall in late-afternoon light. A single chair faces a marked-out stage, tall windows along one wall, a script and a coffee on a nearby table.

Sunday, late.

You came to teach acting, not chase payments and write call sheets.

The session fee from a private student never came in.

One of your privates is two weeks behind on her tuition. You meant to send the note Tuesday, and again Friday. It feels rude to be the one chasing it, so you closed the laptop both times.

A parent texted on Saturday asking for the audition monologue.

She wants the piece you suggested for her son three weeks ago. You typed it into a text, somewhere. It’s between a photo of a script and a Saturday-morning thread about pickup. You can’t find it on a phone screen the way you could on a stage.

The showcase is in nine days. The program is a blank Doc.

Six monologues, four scenes, twelve student bios. The cast list is on a sticky note inside your script. The Doc has been blank since the auditions wrapped two weeks ago. The print shop wants the file by Wednesday.

what you can do with one tap

What one tap does.

Friday, 4:48 PM

A photo of the stack becomes 28 grades.

A pile of graded papers on your desk. The weekend is right there. You snap a photo, tap Record grades, and the 28 marks land in the gradebook. The marked-up copies save to each student’s folder. The parents who asked for a heads-up get one in your voice. Close the laptop.

3:58, two minutes to class

You mark the one who isn’t there. The room is logged.

You’re across the room signing a permission slip. One tap on the student who isn’t there. Or you tell your assistant “everyone but Bobby showed up.” Today’s attendance is in. Bobby’s family gets the auto-draft note in your voice.

Walk-in, Tuesday afternoon

Their welcome packet is ready before they leave.

A new family at the door, here to see the place. You tap Welcome packet. A branded packet with their name, your policies, and your rates lands in their email and in their Drive folder under a minute later. They sign and send it back the same evening.

what you actually use

The studio’s home screen before the 4 o’clock walks in.

Time-aware greeting. Today’s sessions on the panel. Marlowe in a side tab. Four quick actions that match what a coach actually does first.

The Merritt Theater Academy home screen on a phone. The studio name centered at the top, the greeting ‘Good morning, Diana,’ and four quick-action cards: log a rehearsal, take attendance, director’s note, ask Marlowe.

It opens to calm organization, by design.

The studio’s name centered at the top, a greeting that knows the time of day, and the four cards you tap between scenes: log a rehearsal, take attendance, draft a director’s note, ask Marlowe. The data sits one tap down when you want it.

  • The studio’s name on every family-facing screen, your colors throughout
  • Marlowe in a side tab. Open her when you want help, ignore her between sessions.
  • Sessions, attendance, tuition, director’s notes: one menu down

what’s inside

Twelve tools every CANOPY ships with, plus four for the stage.

What every CANOPY studio gets

  • Students and family contacts
  • Schedule on your Google Calendar (the season calendar)
  • Family communications
  • Documents (intake, invoices, programs)
  • Tuition: invoices, family balances, overdue tracking
  • Rehearsal attendance
  • Director’s notes (the theater idiom for feedback)
  • Rehearsal and session plans
  • Tasks and reminders
  • Knowledge base your assistant can quote
  • Studio branding, plus Marlowe as your assistant

The four built for the solo theater teacher

  • Productions and showcases with cast roster, scene order, run times
  • Class packs (pre-paid session bundles, auto-decrement on attendance)
  • Program-inquiry pipeline through six stages
  • Family portal with magic-link sign-in

Add or drop any of these from the settings tab whenever you want. The app updates in the background. No rebuild, no migration.

a week at the studio

Three moments from a real coaching week.

A close view of a paperback play script open on a table, margins covered in pencil notes, a tea mug at the corner, late-afternoon light from the side.

Tuesday, 3:48 PM

The 4 o’clock walks in already prepared.

Last week’s director’s notes are on the screen. The monologue she’s working (Juliet’s balcony piece, cut for time) is right there. Her audition deadline next month is pinned to the top of her file. You poured the tea. That was your prep.

Saturday, 11:14 AM

The workshop follow-up got drafted.

Three families wanted the warm-up exercise you used in the morning workshop. One wanted the link to the audition you mentioned for college-prep students. Marlowe drafted the email in your voice, with the right attachments queued. You read it once over lunch, fixed one line, sent.

A costume rack in a dim studio corner, warm gold light spilling from a single overhead lamp, a clipboard hanging from one hanger.
A single ghost light glowing in the center of a dark, empty stage at dusk, a chair turned to face it from the house.

Sunday, 7:32 PM

The showcase program came together early.

Cast list, monologues, scenes, run times, every student’s bio, all in the productions module from the season you already logged. You exported the program, fixed two names that the auto-fill mangled, sent the PDF to the print shop. The laptop closed at 8 PM for once.

Optional AI

Marlowe, when you want her. In the wings the rest of the time.

Marlowe drafts the family email you keep meaning to write. She writes the receipt the moment a tuition payment lands. She quotes your studio’s own policies, because you wrote them in the Knowledge Base once and she reads them back the same way every time. She drafts the showcase program copy from your cast list.

Switch her off in settings and the studio runs the same. Sessions, attendance, tuition, the showcase, every core module keeps working. AI is one tab in this app, never a dependency.

She helps the days you want help. The other days, the app already does the work.

A marked-up script on a dark wood desk, a small reading lamp casting a pool of warm light, a pencil and a folded program beside it.

what it actually does

The work it does for you on a Tuesday.

Plain capabilities. The ones in the box on day one.

Roster and rehearsal attendance.

Every student has a profile with a family contact, a Drive folder of their own, and a rehearsal attendance log. Mark a session held with one tap. Absences feed your follow-up list automatically.

Tuition and class packs.

Invoices, payments, family balances, overdue tracking. Class packs let a family pre-pay a ten-session bundle. Credits decrement when you mark a session held. Soonest-to-expire used first.

Branded family communications.

Email drafts to one family or your whole list, branded with your studio’s name and colors. Every email logged. Marlowe drafts, you read and send. No scheduled sends or automation rules today.

Director’s notes per student.

Feedback recorded as notes against a scene, a monologue, or a run-through. The theater idiom, not letter grades. Per-student history, per-piece review, the whole season at a glance.

Productions and showcases.

Cast roster per show, scene order, run times, per-student fee tracking. The module produces a program data view you can hand to the printer.

Documents that fill themselves.

Templates with placeholders (student name, family contact, attendance summary, recent director’s notes) fill from your data and save to the student’s Drive folder as a Doc and a PDF.

how to get yours

You’re looking at the studio’s demo on this page.

No sales call. No demo schedule. The home screen, the Tuesday session, the Sunday showcase program are all on this page already.

Look

You’ve been doing it since you scrolled in.

The screens above are the actual app. Scroll back to the home screen, the Saturday workshop follow-up, or the Sunday showcase moment for a second look.

Buy

Checkout takes about two minutes.

Drop in your studio’s name, your billing email, your card. Stripe handles the payment. Cancel any time in month one.

Make it yours

Set it up in about ten minutes.

Your app is already at your subdomain. The setup wizard walks you through picking the brand colors. About ten minutes from your end.

The app scales with you, not into something else. A handful of private students today, a Saturday workshop tomorrow, a full company someday. Same app, more rows in the same tabs. No rebuild.

pricing

One flat price for the solo theater teacher.

No size matrix. If the studio is you, this is the one.

$169/mo · Solo

or $699 once to own.

One teacher, every core tool on. The full operating backbone for a working coach, a Saturday workshop, or a single drama program.

Start your studio’s CANOPY

Includes

  • Students, family contacts, schedule on your Google Calendar
  • Tuition, rehearsal attendance, communications
  • Tasks, reminders, your studio’s branding
  • Director’s notes, rehearsal plans, reports
  • Knowledge base

If you lead a team of teachers (an assistant director, a music director, a co-teacher or two), CANOPY Pro for theater programs is the one for you. $699/mo, or $6,999 once to own. Production staff and family portal on by default.

Voices

What theater teachers have said back.

I can tell a parent exactly which monologue we’re working on this month.

a private acting coach

The Saturday workshop runs without me writing six follow-up emails on Friday night.

a drama teacher

Tuition stopped being the thing I dread sending a reminder about.

a teaching artist

questions

What theater teachers ask before they buy.

I coach private students out of a small studio. Does it fit one teacher with twenty kids?

Yes. That is exactly who this edition is for. One teacher, one calendar, one tuition ledger, one director’s-notes thread per student. Nothing built around departments or staff rosters until you choose to add them.

We give director’s notes, not letter grades. Does the app handle that?

Yes. Feedback is recorded as notes against a scene, a monologue, or a run-through, the way a director actually works. No letter grades or percentages unless you want to add them yourself in the gradebook.

My students audition outside the studio. Can the app track their pieces and deadlines?

Yes. Each student has notes, documents, and tasks that travel with them. Pin the monologue, file the headshot in their Drive folder, set the audition date as a task. It’s your own working file, not a school’s record system.

Showcases and a printed program, does the app handle that for one teacher?

Yes. The Productions module tracks a cast list, scene order, run times, and per-student fees. It produces the program data you hand to the printer.

Where does my data actually live?

In your own Google Workspace. Student profiles are Sheets in your Drive. Director’s notes are Docs in your Drive. Showcase programs are PDFs in folders you own. If you ever leave CANOPY, you keep all of it. We don’t see it, we don’t sell it, Anthropic doesn’t train Claude on it.

Do I have to use the AI?

No. Marlowe is one button in the corner. Open her when you want help drafting a workshop follow-up or the showcase program copy, close her when you don’t. The studio runs the same with her off.

Is there a free trial?

No. There’s a free demo (Willowbrook). It runs the actual app with sample data. Use it as long as you need before you decide.

One teacher. One studio. One app.

Get the evenings off the laptop.

A single chair set at center house, facing a dark stage lit only by a single ghost light. Empty rows of seats around it.