The three calls
- Warn. About a page ahead, give the operator a warning so they can get ready: "Warning lights 12." Many companies skip warnings for simple cues.
- Standby. A few lines ahead, put the cue on standby: "Standby lights 12." Leave at least 1.5 seconds before the go so the operator can answer.
- Hear the answer. Wait for the operator to reply "Standing by" before you go on. If there is no answer, ask again.
- Go. On the exact word or moment marked in your prompt book, say the cue and then the word go: "Lights 12, go." The operator acts on the word go.
- Clear. After the go, the cue is done. Move your eyes to the next cue marked in the book.
The order matters more than the exact words. Some houses say "LX" and "sound", some say "lights" and "Q"; what never changes is warning before standby, standby before go, and the word go last.
Where the marks go in the prompt book
Each cue is written in the margin of the script: a W and the cue number where the warning is called, SB where the standby is called, and the cue number with a line or arrow at the exact word it goes on. The sample prompt book page shows the layout Spikemark uses.
How Spikemark times your calls
The drill reads the scene aloud one line at a time. It records when each line starts and ends, and nothing finer: word by word timing events are not fired reliably by every browser, so every go point in Spikemark sits at the start or the end of a line. With no voice available, the lines are shown on a caption clock instead, each for its reading time.
- A warning counts from just before the start of its warning line (0.3 seconds early still counts, for reaction time) until the standby line begins.
- A standby counts from the start of its standby line, but not later than 1.5 seconds before the go.
- A go is on time within 0.9 seconds on Easy, 0.6 seconds on Standard and 0.4 seconds on Hard. Harder levels also add cues.
- One standby may cover two cues standing by together, as it would on headset, and two go points under 1 second apart are one go.
- Each cue takes one warning and one standby. A second warning or standby in its window, or a go with no cue on its point, is a false call: a false go fails the nearest cue, because on a real show it fires a cue nobody was ready for.
| Cue | What it does | Warn from | Standby from | Go at |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LX 1 | Cold morning light firms up once business starts | 0.0 s | 3.6 s | 13.9 s (start of line 4) |
| SQ 1 | Wind gusts at the outer door | 13.9 s | 19.7 s | 29.5 s (start of line 6) |
| LX 2 | Slow shift: the rocker picked out as Hale points | 37.5 s | 42.2 s | 54.2 s (end of line 10) |
| SQ 2 | The kitchen clock ticks up | 42.2 s | 49.1 s | 56.3 s (start of line 12) |
Call LX 1 0.9 seconds after its go point at Standard, where the window is 0.6 seconds, and the report says: "Go was 0.9 s late; the go is at the start of line 4."
Common mistakes
- Saying go before the cue number. The operator should know which cue before the word go.
- Standing by too late, so the operator has no time to answer.
- Calling the go when you see the move instead of on the marked word. Your marks are the timing.
- Forgetting a cue that shares a line with another. Read ahead a page, not a line.
- Rushing to catch up after a missed cue. Take the next cue on its mark and fix the miss after the show.
Practise on public domain scenes in the calling drill, and learn the blocking side in the daily blocking drill.
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.
- 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.
- MDN Web Docs, SpeechSynthesisUtterance: start event. Fired when an utterance has begun to be spoken; opened 27 September 2026.
- MDN Web Docs, SpeechSynthesisUtterance: boundary event. Word and sentence boundary events, which Spikemark does not rely on; opened 27 September 2026.
- 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.