What goes in it
- Script pages with blocking and cues beside the lines they belong to.
- The blocking key: your tokens and what they mean.
- Ground plans for each set, with the area grid.
- The cue sheet: every cue by department, number, page and what it does.
- The run sheet: what happens backstage, when and who does it, for each performance.
- Contacts, schedules and reports: contact sheet, rehearsal and performance reports.
Putting it together
- Choose a binder. Use a sturdy ring binder big enough for every script page plus the paperwork. Tabs for each section save time in tech.
- Mount the script. Put each script page on its own sheet with wide margins, or photocopy it onto the middle of a larger page, so there is room for cues on one side and blocking on the other.
- Number everything. Number every line or every page so a cue or a note can be found fast. Blocking notes get numbers too.
- Put the key in front. Print your blocking key and the area grid and put them at the front, so anyone can read your shorthand.
- Add the paperwork sections. Add the contact sheet, rehearsal reports, the cue sheet, the run sheet and the ground plans, each behind its own tab.
- Write in pencil. Blocking and cues change until the show opens. Write in pencil and keep an eraser in the binder.
A page from a practice prompt book
This is "The quilt" from Trifles laid out the way Spikemark prints it: cues on the left with their warning, standby and go, the numbered script in the middle, and the blocking on the right, numbered in the order the director gave it. The staging is invented for practice.
Trifles, The quilt
| Cues | Script | Blocking |
|---|---|---|
| W SQ 1 | 1 MRS PETERS She was piecing a quilt. | 1 MP X C |
| SB SQ 1 | 2 MRS HALE It's log cabin pattern. Pretty, isn't it? I wonder if she was goin' to quilt it or just knot it? | |
| GO SQ 1 (start)W SQ 2 | 3 SHERIFF They wonder if she was going to quilt it or just knot it! | 2 SH ENT L3 CA ENT L |
| SB SQ 2 | 4 COUNTY ATTORNEY Frank's fire didn't do much up there, did it? Well, let's go out to the barn and get that cleared up. | 4 CA X R5 SH EXIT UC |
| GO SQ 2 (start) | 5 MRS HALE I don't know as there's anything so strange, our takin' up our time with little things while we're waiting for them to get the evidence. | 6 CA EXIT UC7 MH SIT |
| W LX 1 | 6 MRS HALE I don't see as it's anything to laugh about. | |
| SB LX 1 | 7 MRS PETERS Of course they've got awful important things on their minds. | 8 MP SIT |
| GO LX 1 (start) | 8 MRS HALE Mrs Peters, look at this one. Here, this is the one she was working on, and look at the sewing! | |
| W LX 2 | 9 MRS HALE All the rest of it has been so nice and even. And look at this! It's all over the place! | 9 MH TURN |
| 10 MRS PETERS Oh, what are you doing, Mrs Hale? | ||
| SB LX 2 | 11 MRS HALE Just pulling out a stitch or two that's not sewed very good. Bad sewing always made me fidgety. | |
| GO LX 2 (end) | 12 MRS PETERS I don't think we ought to touch things. | 10 MP RISE, X UL |
The page has 12 lines, 4 cues and 10 blocking notes. Print it, or any other scene, from the calling drill.
Common mistakes
- Margins too narrow to write in. Cues and blocking need room, especially on busy pages.
- Writing in pen. Blocking changes; ink makes the book unreadable by opening night.
- No key in front. Nobody else can read your shorthand without it.
- Cues without a warning or standby point marked, so the call comes as a surprise.
- Loose paperwork. If it is not in the binder behind a tab, it will not be there in tech.
Blank pages for the key, the grid, the cue sheet and the run sheet are free on the prompt book pages.
Sources
Checked on 27 September 2026. Stage management notation and calling have no single governing standard; what is written here is common practice in our own words. Where your teacher, stage manager or company does it differently, follow them.
- Susan Glaspell, Plays, Project Gutenberg ebook 10623. Trifles (first performed 1916), the kitchen description and the lines used in the drills; opened 27 September 2026.
- Spikemark's grader. The four part blocking grade and the cue timing grade described on this page are the rules the drills apply; every example on this page is computed by them.