Benson Theatre — Rebuild Plan

A phased plan for rebuilding bensontheatre.org from the scraped content into a clean custom WordPress theme owned by Benson Theatre. No code is being lifted from the existing Shape Society theme.

30-day delivery target (from PROPOSED-AGREEMENT.md)

The proposal commits to a 30-day window from contract signing to public launch. Phases below map to the four-week schedule:

Week Calendar window Phases covered Internal milestones
Week 1 Days 1-7 Phase 0 close-out, Phase 2 Theme scaffold, Phase 3 Content architecture Local scaffold, plugins installed, ACF + event CPT registered, brand tokens applied, header/footer/base templates
Week 2 Days 8-14 Phase 4 Page build, Phase 5 Tech replacements (start), Phase 6 Media migration All KEEP pages built and content-populated, donate + memberships live, Gravity Forms set up, all 66 images in media library
Week 3 Days 15-21 Phase 5 Tech replacements (finish), Phase 7 SEO + redirects, internal QA Schema, legal pages (Termly + customizations), accessibility statement, /policies rewrite, 301 redirect map, security plugins config, soft launch on staging for Jim's review
Week 4 Days 22-30 Phase 1 Working session feedback applied, Phase 8 Launch Client review feedback incorporated, final QA, DNS cutover, post-launch monitoring

Phase 1 (KEEP/KILL/MERGE working session with Jim) happens BEFORE day 1 — that's the May 11 session. Phase 9 (Post-launch) starts day 30 and runs into the ongoing retainer.

Slippage rule: if Jim's feedback during week 3 review takes longer than two business days at any checkpoint, launch shifts day-for-day.

Phase 0 — Access & Setup

Goal: Stop being blocked by infrastructure. Get the keys to the kingdom in our hands.

Phase 1 — Working Session With Jim

Goal: Decide what's IN and what's OUT before we build anything.

Phase 2 — Theme Scaffold

Goal: A working WordPress theme on Local that loads at all.

Phase 3 — Content Architecture

Goal: Define every CPT, taxonomy, and ACF module needed.

Phase 4 — Page Build

Goal: Static pages from the KEEP list, populated with scraped content.

Phase 5 — Tech Replacements

Goal: Replace what we said we'd replace in tech-stack.md.

Phase 6 — Media Migration

Goal: Pull all images off the live site, upload to new media library.

Phase 7 — SEO & Redirects

Goal: Don't lose any existing organic traffic + clean up the spam compromise.

Phase 8 — Launch

Goal: DNS cutover, old site retired.

Phase 9 — Post-launch

Goal: Hand off to a Benson Theatre team that can actually maintain the site.

Open questions for Jim

These need answers before/during the working session in Phase 1:

  1. Who owns the PayPal merchant account that's collecting donations + memberships today?
  2. How is the "quarterly insider newsletter" actually sent? (Mailchimp? Manually from Gmail?)
  3. Are there more email mailboxes than we know about? (We've seen admin@, booking@, info@, paul@, volunteer@, possibly maddie@, miranda@)
  4. Is the Bar genuinely going away as a programming concept, or just the Broadway Bar event? (/the-bar page implies the bar IS a product — the catering room and tech are listed alongside it as "The Space")
  5. What's the appetite for a new visual design vs. matching the existing look-and-feel closely?
  6. Who, on the Benson Theatre side, will be the day-to-day site administrator after launch?

What this rebuild is NOT