[SML] What is your favorite cue number method?

[Dougherty, Jim]

What I don’t understand is why the operators are getting their cues from the Stage Manager in the first place.  The operators should have their own scripts, and know the show well enough to call their own cues, without the delay and possible communications error of getting their cues from the Stage Manager, who should not have their head in a book!

This opinion, for those who don’t know, is not so much mine as a remembrance of past list member Frank Wood: a curmudgeon of the highest order and something of a troll if one agrees to use that word in the kindest way possible.  I am convinced that pushing buttons on this list was a favorite pastime of his, enough to earn him killfile status in more than one email inbox.  He was an early and long-standing contributor who sadly passed away a while back.  He was known in real life to many on this list - myself, sadly, not among them and I say that having had more than one off-list conversation in which we strongly disagreed with one another.  Those who did know him left me with the impression that he was actually quite nice in real life though some I’ve heard from are also curmudgeons, so make of that what you will.

Anyway, miss you Frank.  You made this joint interesting.

Finally:

- I don’t like point cues with more than one decimal, and prefer them to be related (internal fades, autofollows, etc.);
- Huge or complex cue numbers seem like a recipe for oops;
- Our SMs give Warning (wake up), Standby (be immediately ready), then Go (PUSH DA BUTTON) but don’t always include the first two if several cues are in quick succession;
- I started out with numbers for lights and letters for sound, but there are often so many sound cues these days that both numbered is fine;
- I’m mostly a TD, props person, and rigger so make of all this what you will.

- Jim Dougherty
ATD, Middlebury College