A theatre production generates a surprising amount of paper. Alongside the script there is a second body of documents that most audiences never see: schedules, lists, plans, plots and reports that record what the company has decided and carry it to the people who need it. Taken together this is usually just called the paperwork, and it is the practical machinery by which a large, temporary group of people build the same show and then perform it, faithfully, night after night.
It helps to start from why so much of it is needed. A production is put together by dozens of people, most of whom are never in the room at the same time, over a few intense weeks. A decision taken in the rehearsal room on a Tuesday (an actor will now exit on the other side of the stage, carrying the lamp with her) has consequences for lighting, for whoever is operating the fly system, for the stage management team who have to make sure the lamp is in the right place to begin with. Someone has to record that decision and get it to each of those people. And once the show opens, it has to be recreated exactly at every performance, often by operators who were never at a rehearsal. The paperwork is how a set of one-off decisions becomes something repeatable.
Practice varies a great deal here. Different companies, venues and countries use different documents, different names for the same document, and different ideas about who owns each one. What follows is the common shape of it rather than a fixed system.
Stage management paperwork
If the paperwork has a center, it is the stage management team, whose job is largely to gather, maintain and distribute it. The central document is the prompt copy, almost always known simply as the book: a copy of the script, given wide margins or interleaved with blank pages, in which the blocking (the actors' moves) and every technical cue are recorded as the production is built. In much UK practice the deputy stage manager (DSM) sits on the book through rehearsals, writing down moves as they are set, and then calls the show from it, reading the cues aloud over headset from a fixed position at the side of the stage. In North American practice the stage manager more often calls. Either way, the book is the most complete single record of how the show runs, and a production that lost it would be in real trouble.
From the book, and alongside it, comes a family of lists. A props list tracks every property in the show: where it starts, who handles it, and where it ends up. A setting list, or preset, describes the state of the stage before an act begins, which pieces of furniture stand where, what is dressed on the table, which door is left open. A running plot or shift plot describes the opposite, the movement: who moves what during each scene change, in what order, and often on which count in a blackout. These overlap, and the names shift from one building to the next; the distinction worth holding on to is between paperwork that describes a static state and paperwork that describes an action.
Then there is the paperwork that keeps people informed. A contact sheet lists everyone on the company with their details. A daily call tells each person when and where they are needed. After every rehearsal the stage manager issues a rehearsal report: a short, structured note of what happened and, importantly, what each department now needs to do, so that a request for a working practical light or a query about a cut line reaches the right person the same evening. Once the show is running, the equivalent is the show report, filed after each performance, recording running times, the size of the house, and anything that went wrong or needs attention.
The table below sets out the main documents, grouped by area, with a note of who commonly maintains each. It is a common shape rather than a fixed system: names, ownership and detail vary between companies, venues and countries, and several of these documents are compiled from the design and the groundplan.
| Document | What it records or does | Often maintained by |
|---|---|---|
| Stage management | ||
| The book (prompt copy) | The master script, marked with blocking and every cue; the fullest record of how the show runs | DSM / stage manager |
| Calling script | The standby and go cues in sequence, called live during the performance | DSM (or SM) |
| Props list | Every property: where it is set, who handles it, and where it ends up | Stage management / ASM |
| Setting list (preset) | The state of the stage before an act or scene begins | Stage management |
| Running / shift plot | Who moves what during each scene change, in what order, and when | Stage management |
| Contact sheet | Contact details for the whole company | Stage management |
| Daily call | Who is needed, when and where | Stage management |
| Rehearsal report | What happened in rehearsal and what each department must action | Stage manager |
| Show report | A record of each performance: running times, house, incidents | DSM / SM |
| Design and technical | ||
| Groundplan and section | Scale drawings of the set within the geometry of the stage | Set designer |
| Elevations / working drawings | Detail precise enough for a workshop to build from | Designer / production manager |
| Lighting plan | Position, type and purpose of every lantern, with schedules and a cue synopsis | Lighting designer |
| Sound plot | Sound cues and equipment; a mic plot where radio mics are used | Sound designer |
| Flying plot | Each flown piece, the bar it hangs on, and its cues in and out | Stage management / flys |
| Automation plot | Powered scenery moves and their cues | Automation operator |
| Costume plot | What each character wears, scene by scene, and where the changes fall | Wardrobe |
| Scheduling and admin | ||
| Production schedule | The dates from first rehearsal to opening | Production / stage manager |
| Get-in, fit-up and get-out schedule | The technical calendar for work in the venue | Production manager |
| Risk assessments | Hazards and controls, especially rigging and working at height | Production / technical |
| Budget | What may be spent, and on what | Producer / production manager |
Drawings and technical paperwork
The design side of a production produces its own documents, and these tend to be drawings rather than lists. The foundation is the groundplan, a scale plan of the set seen from above and drawn into the specific geometry of the stage, together with a section, the same set seen from the side, which shows heights, sightlines and anything flown above. From these come elevations and working drawings detailed enough for a workshop to build from, and often a model, including the plain white card model used early on to test the shape of the space.
Each technical department then keeps paperwork of its own. The lighting designer works from a plan showing the position, type and purpose of every lantern (the usual UK word for a stage lighting unit), supported by documents such as an instrument schedule and a channel list, with the cue-by-cue states sometimes gathered separately in a cue synopsis. Terminology here is notably inconsistent, between the UK and the US and even between designers. Sound has an equivalent plot listing its cues and equipment, and, where radio microphones are used, a mic plot allocating which performer wears which channel. Where scenery flies, a flying plot lists each flown piece, the bar it hangs on, and its cues in and out; where scenery moves under power, an automation plot does the same for those moves. Wardrobe keeps a costume plot setting out what each character wears in every scene and where the changes fall, which becomes essential the moment quick changes are involved.
Scheduling and the flow of information
A third strand is less visible but holds everything else up: the documents that manage time. A production schedule maps the whole period from the first rehearsal to opening, and within the venue a more detailed sequence covers the get-in and fit-up (bringing the set into the theatre and assembling it), the technical rehearsal, the dress rehearsals and finally the get-out. In UK venues a set of risk assessments now sits alongside these as a normal part of the paperwork, particularly around rigging, working at height and the handling of scenery. Budgets run underneath all of it.
What ties this strand together is less any single document than a habit: decisions are written down and circulated promptly, in a form the receiving department can act on, so that everyone keeps a shared and current picture of the show.
Paperwork that comes out of the design
A good deal of the running paperwork is, at bottom, a description of where things are and when they move. A setting list, a furniture and set list, the raw material of a shift plot: much of it restates in words information the groundplan already holds. Traditionally each of these is compiled and updated by hand, which is manageable but repetitive, and a fertile source of small errors when a late change to the set fails to reach every list.
This is one place where working from a single, accurate plan pays off, and it is the idea Setplot is built around. Because the scenery in a Setplot production is drawn to real measurements on a metric groundplan and held as persistent objects rather than loose lines, the plan can be the source other paperwork is drawn from, rather than a separate thing to keep in step by hand. A production can hold more than one set, and the venue's own geometry is there too, so sightlines from particular seats can be checked directly from the plan, and a design can be tested against a second stage's dimensions when a show tours or transfers. The core drawing tools are free, including a board that works before you make an account, which makes it a reasonable place to start laying out a plan that later feeds the lists. It does not replace the judgement of a stage manager assembling a shift plot, but it can spare them from copying out, and re-copying, what the plan already knows.
Learning the paperwork
For students, and for people coming to stage management through amateur or community theatre, the paperwork is often the least glamorous part of the craft and the one that most repays attention. Being able to keep a clean prompt copy, write a rehearsal report a technician can act on without a follow-up phone call, or lay out a shift plot that works in the dark is close to the core of the job. It is worth learning the common documents by making them for a real production, however small, rather than only reading about them, because most of what makes them good, knowing what to leave out and who actually needs each piece of information, only becomes clear in use.
None of these documents is fixed or sacred. Every company adapts them, and a fair amount of the skill lies in keeping them only as detailed as they need to be. But the underlying purpose stays constant: to hold a production's many decisions in a form the right people can find, trust and act on, from the first day of rehearsal to the last performance.