User blog comment:Belle pullman/Broadway Cast Formatting/@comment-39097528-20190924125021/@comment-3182821-20190924144604

I presume the info from the book is accumulated in a similar manner - pulled from a large but not comprehensive collection of playbills, and that's why it's "xxx by June 1984" - the researcher likely had a June 1984 cast list, and an April 1984 cast list, but the actor may have joined in May.

The top priority is readability. It needs to be as clear as possible. I don't like transferring the month info to the top of the column because it means scrolling up and down to get the data for certain cast members, but the outliers retain the dates in line in the table - making the reader work harder.

We're not going to be able to get this perfect or perfectly accurate unless RUG allows access to their records (which... no...) so whatever we do will be flawed and lacking complete information. So we need to focus on making it clear, accurate within limitations, and easily updated as and when new information comes to light.

The advantage with the formatting I used for 1998 there, is that apart from the issues with Plato and Victoria, each column covers one period of time, one season. The 1999 formatting uses the 3rd column for cast changes between May - November, it's less clear.

There's also the issue of what I've labelled as "Covers" - when people held the role for a month or less. Generally speaking this is vacation cover or illness cover, and the actual cast member returned to their role. Sometimes it's clear this is what happened, particularly for Marlene Danielle as she so famously held the role for so long, but we need to make it clear that the 1st cast performer returned to their role after their break.