Line Notes for Stage Managers 4+

This app is excellent for taking line notes quickly and efficiently. It has a bunch of pre set options like "dropped a line" or "called for line," but you can also add your own options if you want. You can insert the email and phone number of your cast and crew and email the line notes directly from the app. When you share the line notes, it emails the group you’ve made a PDF of the script with the line notes on it, and a file that can be opened in the Line Notes actor and crew companion app. It’s nice that both are an option, especially with many people not using Apple products. My main gripe is that you can’t choose to send the line notes to people individually and it sends the ENTIRE script every time. This means that if I have a cast member who only has 1 note, they have to scroll through the entire script and through everyone else’s notes to find theirs amongst it all. Other apps like Line-It allow you to send the line notes to the cast by simply sharing a pdf with their notes with only the pages that are relevant to them. A plus for this app though is that you can have multiple scripts at the same time and multiple sessions on the same script saved super easily. I can look back at my line notes from 3 weeks ago as easily as starting a new session of notes without any hassle. Another thing that’s slightly annoying is that you can only highlight horizontally. There should be a pen tool or something to make it easier to customize things that can’t simply be highlighted. Also, on every other app, my Apple pen is set to be the only thing that can write so my hand doesn’t accidentally scribble all over things while I’m writing. This app for some reason doesn’t have that and I’m constantly fighting with trying to flip through pages and instead accidentally writing on my script. Over all I think it’s a great app that makes the process of line notes significantly easier… it’s just got a few small things that could easily be improved. If the features of Line-It and this app were combined, then you’d have the perfect line notes app! They both just need some tweaking.

This app totally rocks!! it has totally improved the entire process of taking line notes and much much faster and efficient. Our theatre company ended up being able to take notes and distribute in a fraction of the time. We have used it for 3 straight shows and a musical, so far. I had envisioned something like this for years but this app is even better than what I thought it would be. It really helped our actors and crew in the last 4 shows with better and quicker feedback but really saved our SM and AD’s a ton of time. As an SM myself, I ran it during the line call rehearsals, and then had an AD use it after actors were into no line-call rehearsals. It took me less than 2 minutes to show my AD how to use the app. Crazy simple. We used it quite a bit for tech notes for light and sound crew, as well as our set designer. Worth every penny and then some. So quick.

I paid $40 for this app just for it to not work. None of the emails actually go out when I press distribute. The email pops up, and I press send; but nothing happens and none of the actors or the director are receiving the notes. I have uploaded my PDF Script, I have all the actors and crew in the system with the correct emails. I made sure the email I was using in the app was the default email on my ipad. I have gone over the user guide 10 times now; checked and double checked everything, but for some reason the emails aren’t going out at all when I send them. Not to peoples emails or their junk folders. I am at my wits end and feel as though I just wasted so much money and time on this app. I was really excited for this app only to be severely let down. I would not recommend it to anyone. If they fix this issue I would be happy to update my review, but if you are reading this, don’t buy this app.