Cate's Playwriter's Room · Fall 2026

A new play is taking shape.

Three of our students are writing an original full-length piece. Stay tuned — coming October '26.

Michelle, Jin, and Patrick
an original play by
Michelle · Jin · Patrick
week 1 of 26 · 0 of 24 milestones lit · Conception
📜 dispatches from the writers' room
…
tap for another →
read between the lines
…
…
What is this character actually saying?
writers' room — insiders only
If you're one of the writers, you have it. Forgot it? You know where to find me.
— Mr. Harvey, Cate
behind the curtain

How this got built.

why

I'm a theatre teacher. I needed tools my classroom didn't have. So I'm teaching myself to code.

I'm still doing the work — writing the curriculum, designing the workshop, sitting in the room with my students. This isn't a replacement for me. It's a way to be in the room when I can't be.

what it does

Three playwrights — Michelle, Jin, and Patrick — can work on their original play asynchronously. Outside of class. At midnight. In the middle of a thought. They open this. It walks them through the next step.

what it won't do

It will never give them an answer.

It will ask. It will probe. It will push back. If they try to push past their own thinking, it flags itself for me. The point is the answer in their voice — not a faster route to mine.

how it knows how to do that

Cate's handbook is embedded in the code. My teaching philosophy. The rules of the room. All six months of curriculum. The Socratic questions it asks come from the actual conversations I have with students when their work needs more.

a peek at what's inside
🗺️
The Path — 28 sequentially unlocked steps. They can't skip ahead.
🙋
Break it down, Mr. Harvey — a plain-language explainer for every step.
🤔
I'm stuck — walk me through it — branching Socratic questions in their own voice.
🚩
Flag this for Mr. Harvey — every question has a button. I see all of them.
🤝
Team signoff — all three writers approve before anything reaches me.
🛠️
Admin queue — I peek at their work, give teaching advice, approve or send back.
where I am with it

Still building. Every day I learn more. Every week the site gets a little smarter, a little kinder, a little closer to the room itself.

We still have in-person class. Always.

This is the thing I can build now. Tomorrow I'll build the next thing.

— Mr. Harvey · JMPWrites.org
Home Story Chat Workbook 📅 Calendar Room Roadmap Phases Outline Co-Write Punchlist Words Wall Lore
Curtain up in
— d — h — m
until opening night
🎭Mr. Harvey's Room
No. 01 · Fall 2026 Cate's Playwriter's Room Opens late October · v2026.05.20.w
✦ …
Phase 1 · Conception

Hey.

We're at week 1 of 26. Just getting started.
—
Days to next deadline
0
Milestones done
24
To go
—
Day streak 🔥
Michelle, Jin, and Patrick
✦ The play · locked foundation
Phase 1 · Conception

Your surveys for this phase.

Each survey walks you through questions and builds your answers. Take them in order.

—
Next thing due
Loading…
Today's question · sit with it
…
Where we are
Premise0%
4 leads0/4
8 supporting0/8
This week

What we're up to

…

Your homework

🔥
your streak
0
days in the room
recent activity

What's been happening

Quiet so far. That changes when you start.
latest from chat

In the room

Quiet. Say hi.

★ Our north star

Gorgeous
Make pictures the audience can't shake.
Movement
Tell the story with bodies, not just mouths.
Message
Give them something to argue about on the way home.
Professional
They should forget you're in high school.

The Roadmap

May → October. Six phases. Four hard deadlines. One opening night.

The Phases

Six months, broken into six chunks. Pick one.

📒 My Work

Everything you've submitted — go back, view, edit, or revise any of it. Auto-saves as you type.

🧩 The Shape

Everything you've built so far. Where the play is coming together. Where it still needs sharpening.

🎬 The Story · Live

Where the play could go — based on what you've all put in so far. Updates as more answers come in. Possibilities, not promises.
Our premise

📝 Review their work

Every answer each writer has put in — with a dramaturg suggestion under each one. Edit the suggestion in your voice, then send it. They'll see it in their inbox.

🗝 The Vault

Everything that lives only on your side. Auto-saves. Writers can never see this page. Work here while they work there.

The Punchlist

Everything we owe the play. Tap to check off.

The Words

Every term we'll throw at you. Search or scroll.

The Wall

Pin board. Half-thoughts welcome. Bad ideas welcome too.
image attached
posting as —

The Chat

Real-time. Talk to whoever's in the room.

It's quiet in here.

Say something to break the ice.

The Scene Wall i

Drag-drop scene cards. Color them. Move them. This is how rooms actually plan.
Add scenes by typing into either column. Drag cards anywhere — order syncs to everyone.

Act 1 0

Act 2 0

The Co-Write Pad i

A shared notepad for whoever wants to draft together. Everyone can type, everyone sees it.
—

The Tribe Knows…

Theatre's old superstitions and rituals. Now you know.

The Workbook

Mr. Harvey's breakdown for the step you're on — plus a few fun ways to find the answer when your brain won't cooperate.
your current step

…

…

⬇ Print this page
fun ways to find this answer

When your brain won't cooperate, try these instead.

Heads up: only your current step lives here. Past and future stay closed — that's the point. You'll see what's next when it's actually next.
Stuck on something in the packet?
Ping me. I'm waiting for the questions.

📅 Calendar

Every milestone, rehearsal, and note from now until opening night. Tap any day.
Month Year

The Room

Always open. Hop in whenever — for office hours, scene work, or just to feel less alone while you write.
Always-on meeting room No scheduling. Click in. Cameras and mics start off so you can come and go.

Tap "Join the room" to enter.

The video starts loading once you join — keeps things light when you're not using it. Cameras and mics begin muted; turn them on when you're ready.

prefer Google Meet?

Google Meet doesn't allow embedding, but if you make a Google Meet room and paste the URL here, anyone on the team can hop into it from this page. (Anyone with edit access can save.)

🛠 The Workflow

Paste in the latest Google Doc. It sorts everything, flags what matters, and lays out the plan to share with them.

🎬 Opening Lab — how the play begins

Everything you need to guide them through the opening, in one place: what's locked, what they've built, the craft behind a strong point of attack, and the exact questions to put to them.

📚 Work documents & full archive

Save a copy of everything the writers have ever entered, and pull a simplified worksheet for any step to hand off — plus your own coaching guide for each.

📍 You are here

The one thing the whole room is waiting on, why it's stuck, and the lever to move it. The full journey is mapped below — tap any step to read or fill its answers.

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Where each writer is

Each writer's actual input, what's still blank, and a one-tap nudge.

🩺 Story health check

One read across everything in the room — premise, all four characters, the climax, the ensemble, the beats — graded against 90-minute whodunit structure (Egri · Spencer · Ball). Updates live.

✍️ Fill in any answer

Pick any step and type — or generate — answers for missing fields. This is where the 8 supporting roles (the rest of the ensemble) and every other gap gets filled. Suggestions are stitched only from facts the room has already stated. Everything saves through your ↶ Undo.

🎭 Build the 4th character from the data

The outside lead — the one who forces the truth. Synthesized to stand in dialectical opposition to the three the writers built. Generate, read, regenerate, then commit it to the character.
Get phone-style alerts when the writers flag a question, submit work, or hit a milestone.

📣 Send a pop-up

It lands on their screen the second you hit send. They have to acknowledge it before they can keep working.

📨 Awaiting your approval

Submitted work from the writers. Peek, get teaching advice, approve, or send back.
— none right now —

🗺 All 28 steps · lock / unlock / preview

Click any step. View their answers. Lock it. Unlock it. Mark it done. Preview a future step without touching anything live.

🚩 Flagged questions

Everything the writers couldn't figure out. Resolve them as you address them.
— none flagged —

🧰 Deep tools

The old standalone pages, pulled out of the nav so this stays clean. Every one still holds its data — open any time.
— from Mr. Harvey

…

…
🎭
milestone
—
—

🚩 Flag this for Mr. Harvey

…

press ESC or click outside to close