ClaireL

Agree with Kerry. Unless your cast are especially butterfingered/ prone to chucking their crockery around, ask them to take care.  If there's a butler or footman character, equip them with an approriate looking dustpan, and get the ASM ready to shove them on stage if it should become necessary. Or dress the ASM as a footman. 

Pigs Might Fly is a good brand,  but I don't know if it's available in the US.

For other forums, try Facebook,  Stage Managers group

Grace, you could do with providing a bit more info - is this a learning environment (school/college?), or amateur theatre,  or professional? 

These are pretty large questions,  and it would be helpful to know what support/ advice you have available in person.  

Also,  you might get more response in some of the stage management related Facebook groups. 

Get a fight director.  If a year 10 child is being 'stabbed', you need someone qualified , and they will also tell you how to manage the blood. 

I recall the first show I light opped (in fact the very first show I opped in any way at all) the DSM calling "Standby LX Q 65 through to the end followed by LX go ... go ... go ,,, go ...

The show that prompt book page is from has in the first block of standbys - Standby Act 1 LX

Every single follow-spot cue of about 150 has a standby, though

A few other things to note that PPs have referred to, but not spelled out - the convention is always that the GO is the last thing written/said. Your script has this correct, but in your OP, you have GO Sound Q7, which should never be used.

Also, you should always list grouped cues for different departments in the same order - the convention is that LX is always first, then Sound, Flys, followed by whatever else you may be using. In your script example, sometimes Sound is first, sometimes LX, and this may make your Operator wonder why - should the Sound Q be taken slightly ahead of LX?

SFX isn't used by showcalling DSMs, it sounds far too much like LX over cans. In a prompt book I use LXQ19 and SNDQ19, and quite often miss out the Q and even the number as well when calling, depending on how fast things are going. If you've got cues in your show which come very close together, you can draw an arrow down to the next one as a sort of 'keep going' indicator.

If you've got a big gap between cues, it can help your operator if after the last cue before the gap you put a note, "Next cue (LX19) on page 36, after approx 5 mins, shortly after shouted line, Vader: These ARE the droids I am looking for!"

The prompt book on the web page you found is unhelpful in one respect; it has lines from the text to the cue, but doesn't indicate the exact word or in the example of Exeunt, is the cue when they start to exit, or when the last person has left the stage? If a cue goes on a word, the convention is to put a box round the word (or the syllable if it's a long word). If it's after the word, you put a short upright off the line after the relevant word.

I've put a double page of one of my prompt books https://www.dropbox....164134.jpg?dl=0 here. It's not very tidy, but is the only one I have to hand, and shows you boxes round words and upright line at the end of a word.

I have my own comms headset with a 4 pin xlr female connector on. That's fine for most in-house comms systems, but occasionally I tour into a venue where the comms input is 4 pin female.

Canford sell a male-male converter with a short cable, but with their minimum order, it would cost me £35 to get one.

I can't solder to save my life, so am asking if someone here could please make me a connector, for parts + labour + postage + a bit of profit?