OnStage: Perform with a little less stress

Overview

OnStage turns your phone into a teleprompter for your own poem. You never have to scroll: the poem moves forward while you speak and stops the moment you pause, so a dramatic silence looks like nothing happened. The line you are on has a colored bar beside it, and the next four lines are always on screen, so you never wait for the screen to catch up.

How to start it

1. Open one of your poems. Drafts work too, so you can rehearse a poem before it goes live.
2. Tap the green OnStage button at the top of the poem, next to Focus Mode. On a phone it is the microphone square beside the Focus Mode button.
3. Allow the microphone when your browser asks.
4. Say a few words to check the meter, then tap Start. The poem waits until you start speaking.

On an iPhone: stop the microphone question

Safari on an iPhone can ask for the microphone again on later visits. To stop it asking, set it once before your reading:

1. Open GS Poetry in Safari.
2. Tap the page menu button at the left of the address bar.
3. Tap Website Settings.
4. Set Microphone to Allow.

Do it at home, not at the venue, so the question never pops up while you are walking to the mic.

The five choices

• Room. Quiet, Normal or Loud. In a loud room it needs a stronger voice before it moves, so applause and chatter do not push it along.
• Pace. Slow, Steady, Brisk or Quick: how fast the lines move while you speak.
• Text size. Five sizes.
• Lines ahead. Three or four lines stay bright below the one you are reading.
• Current line. Upper third, or Top of screen. Top of screen puts the line you are reading right under your webcam, so your eyes stay near the camera during an online reading.

GS Poetry remembers your choices on that phone, so next time they are already picked and you only tap Start.

Which choices to pick

OnStage hears that you are speaking, not which words you say. These three choices tune it to you and the room.

Room: how loud you need to be before the poem moves

• Quiet. The slightest voice moves it. Use it for a living-room reading, rehearsing at home, a library or a small hushed room, or if you speak softly.
• Normal (the default). A regular speaking voice moves it. Use it for most open mics, a coffee shop with light background noise, or an online reading on a laptop.
• Loud. It needs a strong, close voice, so other sounds do not push it along. Use it for a bar, a crowd that snaps, claps or reacts mid-poem, a loud host, music between readers, or when you hold the phone near your mouth while reading into a microphone.

Pace: how fast the lines move while you speak

The poem only moves while you talk, so pace is how quickly it goes while you are talking.

• Slow (about 3 seconds a line). For slow, deliberate reading, emotional poems with long pauses inside lines, or long lines that wrap onto two rows.
• Steady (about 2½ seconds a line, the default). An everyday reading pace that suits most poems.
• Brisk (2 seconds a line). A bit faster than conversation, for confident readers or poems with mostly short lines.
• Quick (under 2 seconds a line). For spoken word with rhythm and drive, or poems with very short lines.

Lines ahead: how many lines below yours stay fully bright

Lines further down are still on screen, just softer.

• 4 (the default). More of the poem in view, so you can see what is coming and plan your breaths. Best for most readings, and if you tend to read ahead.
• 3. Less on screen, so your eyes stay on the line you are reading. Good with a larger text size, where four lines take up a lot of the screen.

A quick guide

• Rehearsing at home: Quiet room, Steady pace, 4 lines ahead.
• A typical open mic: Normal room, Steady pace, 4 lines ahead.
• A loud bar or a rowdy crowd: Loud room, Steady or Brisk pace, 4 lines ahead.
• A slow, emotional poem: Normal room, Slow pace, 4 lines ahead.
• Fast spoken word: Normal or Loud room, Quick pace, 4 lines ahead.
• Big text, so you can read from further away: Normal room, Steady pace, 3 lines ahead.
• An online reading on a laptop: Normal room, Steady pace, 4 lines ahead, and Current line set to Top of screen.

If the poem keeps getting ahead of you, pick a slower pace. If you keep waiting for it, pick a faster one. You can change the pace mid-poem.

While you read

Tap anywhere on the screen to bring up big buttons: Back a line, Pause, Next line, the pace, and Aa for text size. They fade away on their own after a few seconds. After the last line and a moment of quiet, a card lets you read it again or close OnStage.

Your screen stays awake while OnStage is open. Turn on Do Not Disturb before you go up, so a call or a message does not cover your poem.

On a computer

On a laptop or desktop (and a tablet held sideways), OnStage opens as a full window. Your choices are on the left and a live preview on the right shows exactly how big the lines will be and where the current one sits. The text is bigger by default on a computer. While you read, move the mouse to bring up a control bar at the bottom; it fades away when the mouse is still. Or use the keyboard:

• Enter starts.
• Space pauses and resumes.
• Up and Down arrows move back or forward a line.
• + and - change the pace.
• T changes the text size.
• Esc closes OnStage.

Reading online? Choose Top of screen so the line you are reading sits right under your webcam, and use the full-screen button in the control bar.

No microphone? Use tap mode

If your browser blocks the microphone, OnStage explains how to allow it. You can also choose Use tap to scroll instead: every tap on the screen moves the poem forward one line, and no microphone is used at all.

Is my voice recorded?

No. OnStage only measures how loud the room is, so it can tell that you are speaking. It does not record, save, upload or listen for words. Everything happens on your phone, and the microphone turns off the moment you close OnStage.

Good to know

• OnStage follows your voice, not your words. If you slow right down on a long line, tap Back a line or Pause; if it gets ahead, the same buttons fix it in one touch.
• The screen is always dark, even if you use the light theme, because a bright screen glares on a dark stage.
• Formatting like bold and italics is left out on stage so the words are as big and plain as possible.
• OnStage is on the website today, on phones and computers. The GS Poetry app gets it next.