What the stage manager writes down
Warnings, standbys, the word “go”, and why the book stays in pencil until opening night.
A prompt book is a copy of the show with everything that happens written in the margin. Each change gets a warning, a standby and a go. The warning comes a page or so ahead, the standby a few lines before, and the go on the exact word or beat. Everyone on headsets hears the same three words in the same order.
The book stays in pencil until opening night. Cues move during rehearsal, get split in two, get cut. A cue that moves on the last day of rehearsal is normal; a cue that moves after the first night is a conversation.
After each performance the stage manager writes a show report: running time, late cues, anything that broke, anything odd. It goes out the next morning to everyone who worked on the show. We do the same for every project, and the reports in these notes are written that way.