Behind-the-Scenes of Creating SusanStroman.com
“Susan Stroman already proved herself God’s gift to contemporary musical theatre.”
Susan Stroman is a living legend. Creating a website that honors her past, presents her present, and designs OUR future (my mantra that ends with an emphasis on using your work to change the world) was an honor and responsibility I took very seriously.
On May 18th, we quietly released SusanStroman.com. Decades in the making, the site was a six-and-a-half-month project that I want to now share with you.
In addition to highlighting special areas and features of SusanStroman.com, I’m sharing some valuable tips below so you can have an idea of how to DIY your website, or collaborate with us.
Securing the Domain 📍
One of the tiny things I’m most proud of is securing SusanStroman.com. While someone had previously purchased the domain (as an asset to auction or sell), they let the domain expire! After tracking it for months, and a grace period of 80 days, the domain went back to the market, and I was able to grab it for Stro at a fraction of the cost!
If YourName.com is registered, you can always reach out to the owner and request to purchase it. However, the fee is often set by the owner and unregulated.
Use Google Domains to look up the domain, see who owns it, and follow the expiration date. If they don’t renew after a grace period of 30-80 days, it returns to the open market, and you can get it at a fraction of the cost!
Clarifying the Purpose 🎯
If you’re familiar with our unique creative process called The Wizard of 1:1:1, you’ll know we always work to articulate the clients’ No. 1 Goal and No. 1 Audience when starting a project.
While working with Stro, she made it clear that the No. 1 Goal of the website is to serve as a library of her work. Anyone researching Susan Stroman or her work should be able to find everything they need in one place!
For the No. 1 Audience, we articulated that it was “Young Stro” - a dancer looking to make a move into direction and choreography, or perhaps another creative looking to put on the best version of one of Stro’s works.
Knowing the goal and intended audience, we decided to make the website comprehensive, beautifully organized, easy to explore, and searchable.
Determine the No. 1 Goal of your website—and make it an offline goal.
Do you want to move to television and film? Do you want to secure a book deal?
In alignment with your No. 1 Goal, choose a No. 1 Audience to design the website for, such as Stephen Speilberg or Random House.
By getting specific with your No. 1 Goal and No. 1 Audience, you’ll be able to present your No. 1 Self!
MEET YOUNG STRO
Follow Stro’s path in an interactive timeline.
Gathering Assets 📂
The biggest job of this project was gathering all of the materials!
In gathering and organizing the content, we discovered even more awards and nominations, rare photos and archival videos in the corners of the internet, and a slew of helpful resources to offer “Young Stro” in her pursuit of musical theater excellence!
While we collaborated on various areas, the most important and valuable content came from the creator herself: letters from Stro.
“Do it big, do it right, and do it with style.”
It’s not often that artists are invited to share their process with the public. I asked Stro to write a bit of an intro to each project — letting visitors know something unique about the work.
In Stro’s full-out style, she wrote beautiful essays that will take you behind the scenes of her projects. Some of my favorites and must reads:
Crazy for You: Learn about the original ending, last-minute changes, and the train ride that changed everything.
The Producers: Go backstage of the most awarded show in Broadway history and find out what happened behind the scenes.
And the World Goes ‘Round: Discover when and why Susan garnered the name “Stro.”
There are currently 43 productions, with several projects in the wings. To help showcase Stro’s career and assist various audiences in finding what they need, we organized the projects by genre: theater, dance, opera, film and television.
Organize your work on Dropbox or GoogleDrive with various sub-folders per genre and project. Use a spreadsheet to tick boxes as you gather assets. For videos, use YouTube playlists.
See the slideshow for current client examples.
Creating the Stroman Experience 🎩
HOME: The First Impression
To start, I asked Stro how she thinks about starting a show: both with her company and also for the audience. Two key ingredients that came up were clarity and authority. For this reason, we created an animated logo that’s big, right, and done with style.
We also opened with a montage of her work: showing authority. If you watch the entire clip (with or without sound), you’ll see that Stro also signs it. Adding her signature here and at the end of each “Note from Stro” allows the visitor to know that this is officially from Susan Stroman.
TIMELINE: Her Story (and Clues to Success!)
I suggested that we create a timeline for Stro. Beyond the work, it’s perhaps one of the most valuable areas for guests. You can see how Stro went from Wilmington, Delaware, to her award-winning career and latest projects in an interactive timeline.
VIDEOS: Officially Curated for Research
Because we had done the work for each production, creating a video page offered the ability for guests to easily choose which show they wanted to watch official videos from. We wanted to offer future directors, choreographers, and other theater artists the ability to browse videos by production. There are also “bonus features” of Interviews with Stro and Interviews about Stro.
PHOTOS: Behind-the-Scenes
As we gathered photos, we noticed there were distinct categories. Beyond official production stills, we found rehearsal photos, backstage photos, and Stro with collaborators. In addition to organizing the photos by show, we also organized them by type.
Best of all? Stro went through each photo and captioned them for both seeing audiences and those with vision impairments using screen readers!
As you organize the assets on a website, think about the guest experience. While stories traditionally follow a linear path, website design allows the visitor to choose their own adventure! Use your imagination to think about what different audiences might want to see. You can present the same work in several ways: all photos, all videos, or all media per project.
Collaboration 🤝
This project is the largest site we’ve built to date. Like putting on a live performance, it is the culmination of several artists’ contributions.
Special thanks to Stro for spending countless hours writing essays, gathering photos, providing captions, and saying “yes” to having her work accessible online!
Special thanks to Tara Young for kickstarting the project and spending months gathering reviews and photos, captioning photos, and testing the website for the best guest experience.
Special thanks to Nelson Abalos, Jr. for bringing the website to life on Webflow. We couldn’t have done this without you, and generations of audiences will now benefit from your artistry.
Special thanks to Katherine McClintic, Jonathan Freeland, Gertrude Pillena, Daniel Rader, and Dani List for helping to build all of the media galleries and production pages.
Don’t do this alone! Building a website for yourself is difficult. Having outside eyes and hearts can only elevate the project.
Follow the tips here to DIY your website, or reach out to collaborate.
