A working guide
Creating a post that appears on the homepage.
Posts are the site’s flexible workhorse — used for playbill programs, show-run landing pages, announcements, and anything that isn’t a single ticketed performance. This guide covers the Post-specific machinery: the Featured Show Hub that puts a post on the homepage next to events, the Layout Options that control chrome, and the automatic behaviors that kick in for playbills.
Post, Event, or Show Run — which one?
Three content types with three jobs. Pick the one that matches what you’re publishing.
Event
One ticketed performance on a specific date and time. Feeds the calendar, the ticket button, and Google’s event search results. Every performance of a multi-night run is a separate event.
Show Run
An umbrella landing page for a multi-night production. Contains the poster, synopsis, creative team, and a card grid of every performance date. Rendered on a Post via a shortcode.
Post
Everything else: playbill programs, show landing pages that use the Show Run shortcode, news articles, announcements. This guide is about creating these.
Quick rule of thumb
If someone would buy a ticket to it → Event. If it groups a multi-night production → Show Run (embedded in a Post). If it’s a program to read, an article, or anything narrative → Post.
Creating a post
This is the standard WordPress workflow — the same editor Katherine already knows.
In the left sidebar, click Posts → Add New. A blank post editor opens.
Naming and URL
The title is the readable name. WordPress auto-generates a URL slug from the title. For a few specific post types, use these conventions so the site’s automatic behaviors recognize them:
- Playbill posts — slug ends in
-playbill. Example:in-the-heights-playbill. This triggers the wide layout automatically (see Section 7). - Show landing pages — slug matches the show. Example:
in-the-heights-show-dates. - Everything else — WordPress’s auto slug is fine. Edit it below the title if you want to shorten it.
Standard fields
The five fields every post needs — title, content, featured image, category, tags.
The readable name. Displayed as the H1 on the post page and as the card label everywhere else. Title case (In the Heights Playbill, not in the heights playbill).
The main body. For a playbill post this is just the flipbook shortcode plus a download link. For a show landing page it’s the Show Run shortcode. For an article it’s the article body.
Formatting tips:
- Paste shortcodes directly — no quotes or backticks needed.
- Add images via the Media Library, not by pasting from external sources.
- Keep the first paragraph short and scannable — Rank Math uses it for the search snippet.
Right sidebar → Featured Image → Set featured image. This is the poster shown on the Playbill archive card, the Featured Show Hub card on the homepage, and the social share preview.
Even if you’re going to hide the featured image on the post’s own page (see Section 5), still upload it — the archives, homepage cards, and social shares all use it.
Size recommendations are in the Editing Events guide.
Why it matters: without a featured image, the Featured Show Hub card on the homepage renders blank, and the post has no thumbnail in the Playbills archive.
Right sidebar → Categories. Tick the ones that apply. The category assignment triggers automatic behaviors:
- Playbill — the post shows in the /playbills/ archive. Use for every playbill program.
- News or default — the post is a general article, no special behavior.
Optional keywords. Rank Math uses them as SEO signals. If unsure, skip.
Featured Show Hub
This is the machinery that puts a post on the homepage’s Featured Shows section alongside events. Custom to this site — you won’t find it on any other WordPress install.
Where to find it: in the right sidebar of the post editor, look for a metabox titled Featured Show Hub. It has six fields:
The master switch. Tick this box and the post appears as a card in the homepage’s Featured Shows section. Untick and it disappears (but the post itself stays live at its URL).
The date the show run begins. Used as the sort key on the homepage — the card orders itself among event cards by this date. Format: date picker (YYYY-MM-DD).
Why it matters: without a start date the card floats to the top of the list regardless of when the show is. Set this even if the display text will read something else like “Season 2026-27”.
The last performance date. The card automatically drops from the homepage after this date passes — no manual cleanup. Format: date picker (YYYY-MM-DD).
Why it matters: the auto-drop is the reason to use this system instead of manually toggling the Featured checkbox. Set an accurate end date and the homepage stays fresh without staff attention.
Optional. When set, this text appears as the card’s date line instead of the auto-formatted date range. Use for:
- Seasons: “Season 2026–27” instead of “October 1, 2026 – May 31, 2027”
- Recurring shows: “Every Friday in August”
- Open-ended runs: “Now through summer”
Leave empty for standard shows — the system will auto-format the date range as “July 17–25, 2026”.
A small text line that appears directly under the show title on the homepage card — same font and size the venue name uses on event cards. Use for a one-line hook:
- “The hit Broadway musical”
- “Presented by the Seminole Theatre Conservatory”
- “A limited engagement — 4 shows only”
Optional but recommended — a subtitle noticeably lifts click-through on the card.
Optional. Where the card’s Get Tickets button leads. Leave empty and the button links to the post itself — which is usually what you want, because the post has all the show info.
Fill in only when you want the card to skip the post and go straight to Tixr (e.g. a single-page ticketing widget with no landing page).
Multi-date shows: turn OFF Featured on the underlying events
When you set up a Featured Show Hub for a multi-night production like In the Heights, the individual event posts for each performance must have their Feature Event checkbox unticked. Otherwise the homepage shows the hub card plus a card for each performance — cluttered and confusing. See Section 8 for the full workflow.
Layout Options
A second custom metabox that controls how the post renders on its own page — hiding chrome that would otherwise clutter the design.
Where to find it: right sidebar → metabox titled Layout Options. Two checkboxes:
When ticked, the theme’s featured-image display at the top of the post is hidden. The featured image still appears in archives, hub cards, and social shares — it’s only hidden on the post’s own page.
When to use it: when the post’s content already has its own hero image inline (like the ITH show-dates page, which uses the show’s poster as the first HTML element). Prevents the same image appearing twice.
When ticked, the post becomes internal: search engines skip it (noindex), the theme sidebar hides, and the featured image display hides. Use for staff guides like this one.
Do not tick this on show pages or public content — it removes them from Google.
SEO & meta description
Same Rank Math box as events. Below the editor.
The full field-by-field instructions are in the Editing Events guide, Section 4. The abbreviated version for posts:
- Meta title: leave default unless you need a specific search headline. Under 60 characters.
- Meta description: 150–160 characters, includes the show/topic name and a hook.
- Focus keyword: usually the show or article title.
Automatic behaviors
Certain slug and category combinations trigger behaviors automatically — no metabox needed.
Playbill category → appears in /playbills/
Any post tagged with the Playbill category is automatically listed on the public /playbills/ archive as a card. The card uses the post’s featured image (front cover), title, and publish year. No manual list update.
Slug ends in -playbill → wide layout, no sidebar, no featured-image display
Any post whose slug ends in -playbill (e.g. in-the-heights-playbill) automatically renders in a wide, sidebar-free layout — matching the design of a printed program. This works even without ticking any Layout Option.
If the post is also in the Playbill category, the two behaviors reinforce each other.
Featured Show Hub with future end date → shows on homepage
Once ticked and dated, the hub appears on the homepage until the end date passes. Then it silently drops. No unticking, no cleanup.
Why the automatic layer exists
Every automatic behavior above is one less checkbox for staff to remember. The convention (slug pattern, category name) does the work. You can override any of them by ticking the explicit Layout Options — the automatic behaviors are defaults, not walls.
Multi-date show workflow
The end-to-end pattern for a multi-night show like In the Heights, with each piece in order.
- Create one event per performance using the Editing Events guide. Each performance has its own event page, its own Tixr URL, its own price. Leave the “Feature Event” checkbox unticked on every one.
- Create a Show Run at Show Runs → Add New. Fill in the poster (Featured Image), sponsor, dates repeater (add one row per performance date), synopsis, creative team, and box office text. Save. Copy the shortcode it generates: [seminole_show_run id="XXX"].
- Create a Post at Posts → Add New:
- Title: the show name (e.g. In the Heights)
- Slug: something like
in-the-heights-show-dates - Featured Image: the show’s poster
- Body: paste the Show Run shortcode [seminole_show_run id="XXX"]
- Turn on the Featured Show Hub in the Post’s sidebar metabox:
- Tick “Show as Featured Show on homepage”
- Set Show start date and end date to the run’s first and last performance
- Add a Subtitle (e.g. “The hit Broadway musical”)
- Leave Display text override empty (the system auto-formats “July 17–25, 2026”) unless it’s a season pass or recurring
- Leave CTA URL empty (button will link to the post, which has the Show Run)
- Publish the Post. The homepage now shows one hub card in place of four event cards.
Pre-publish checklist
Tick these before the post goes live.
- Title uses title case.
- Slug follows a convention if applicable (
-playbill,-show-dates). - Featured Image uploaded, at least 1200 × 675 px, under 500 KB, with descriptive alt text.
- Category set correctly — Playbill for playbills, otherwise appropriate.
- Featured Show Hub checkbox status matches intent: ticked to feature on homepage, unticked otherwise.
- If featured: Show start date and end date both set; Subtitle written; Display text override filled or intentionally blank.
- For multi-date shows: individual performance events all have their “Feature Event” UNticked.
- Layout Options: “Hide featured image” ticked only if the post has its own inline hero.
- Never tick “Private staff documentation” on public content.
- Rank Math meta description is 150–160 characters.
- Previewed in a new tab; images, shortcodes, and links all render.
