The problem CueCannon solves

Paper was costly and in short supply during Shakespeare’s days. To learn their lines, actors would be given cue cards with their lines and the lines of the actor performing before them. Inspired by this time-honored rehearsal method, CueCannon was created during ETHDenver 2021 to bring the benefits of a decentralized and transparent blockchain technology to help make the performing arts more accessible and equitable. Requiring no account creation and no intermediaries, a user can find a script for a production and then cast and rehearse the production. Authors can publish their work and earn money with no agent and no transaction fees. Productions can store all collaborators’ notes instantly and transparently — a historical treasure trove in the making. Roles can be automatically cast or cast based on line-equity metrics. Performers can focus on their cues rather than thumbing through the whole script. Spectators can access assistive listening and audio-description content currently available with costly equipment. While inspired by theatre, CueCannon can be used for any production requiring a script, including corporate equity, diversity, and inclusion trainings.

Our project advances the following UN SDGs:
• CueCannon promotes quality education by providing anyone with a smartphone the ability to select, cast, and rehearse a production. And the notes that are stored with the cues offer new accessibility opportunities to performers and audience members alike.
• CueCannon promotes decent and equitable work by democratizing the role of cultural curator (literary agents, artistic directors, and stage directors). Authors can publish their work and earn money with no agent and no transaction fees. Productions can store all collaborators’ notes instantly and transparently. Roles can be automatically cast or cast based on line-equity metrics.
• CueCannon promotes responsible production and consumption by reducing our reliance on paper scripts for rehearsal.

Challenges we ran into

Some of the challenges we ran into are:
• First is what we’re calling production permanence. In other words managing user data and maintaining histories of user interactions so that a user can access their cues and notes over multiple sessions.
• And we will need to do a lot more work to allow authors and curators to upload new script content. This will need to address a number of challenges, including preventing plagiarism and providing accurate transcriptions for scripts which may be formatted any number of ways.
• And artists are too commonly asked to work for little or nothing, and we want artists to get paid. So we need to explore incentive structures that equitably compensate artists for their work.
• And finally the Web3 ecosystem uses very different terminology from the world of nonprofit theatre community. Compelling UX writing will be key here to bridge that gap.

• Another technical challenge: Libp2p (afaik) relies on a centralized signaling server. We're currently using a demo one from protocol labs, but maybe with L2 smart contracts we can cheaply coordinate our p2p network and remove that single point of failure.