Your First Theatre Show

What You Need

• CueSync Theatre or Production. The Show Editor and Run Mode are in both.
• Something to fire — a lighting desk, QLab, a media server, or an Art-Net or sACN node. Every edition includes every output protocol.
• The show's audio, if it has any. A backing track or a soundtrack can be the show's clock. A play called entirely on GO needs none.

1. Start the Show File

Choose File → New Project. A new Theatre show is its own clock: the TC role chip in the Show Editor's transport bar reads Master, so nothing has to send CueSync timecode. If the sound desk or a playback machine already runs the show's clock, tap the chip to Follower ← ext TC — Chase Timecode from the Desk or Sound System covers the rest.

2. Add Your Outputs

Open Network → Outputs and click Add Output. Pick the system — grandMA3, ETC Eos, QLab, Resolume, Art-Net and the rest — enter its address, and click Test Connection. The protocol guides have the settings for each one.

3. Build the Cue List

Open the Show Editor (Create group, ⌘ 1).

1. Parts. A Part is one item in the running order: a scene, a song, an act. + Add Part sits at the bottom of the Parts rail; right-click a Part to set its audio.
2. Lanes. A lane is a department — LX, VX, SFX and so on — shared by every Part. + Lane suggests the next name. Right-click a lane chip to route it to the output it drives.
3. Cues. Press ⌘ N to add a cue at the playhead, then give it an action in the Inspector: a desk cue, a QLab GO, a look.
4. How each cue fires. In the Inspector's Triggers tab, pick one of four:

For a musical, Suggest in the cue list toolbar (⌘ ⇧ S) drafts cue points from the Part's audio — at phrase boundaries, downbeats or energy peaks. Tick the ones you want, then give each its action.

4. Rehearse in DRY

Set the selector at the right of the lane strip to DRY and play the show through. Cues advance and follows run, and nothing reaches the rig — timecode output included. REHEARSE+ is a rehearsal that fires for real, to the same outputs as SHOW.

Test-fire each cue as you check it and mark it Ready (R). A cue can be marked Ready only when it has an action and has been test-fired since its last edit, so the Ready count means what it says.

5. Run It in Run Mode

Open Run Mode (Control group, ⌘ 6) and press P to start. With confirm start with unready cues switched on, a pre-show gate names the cues that are not Ready first; Start Anyway always starts.

• GO (Space) fires the next armed timecode cue or, when none is armed, the cue at the head of the standby stack.
• Enter, or FIRE on the standby card, fires the cue standing by. In a show that mixes timecode cues with hand-called ones, call the hand-called cues this way — GO takes an armed timecode cue first.
• A second GO inside a quarter of a second is ignored. Pause, Stop (Esc) and Back each need a second press, so a stray key cannot end the act.
• The running order shows the cue that went LAST and the one that goes NEXT, with its countdown.

Tip: When most of a song runs on timecode, keep its hand-called cues in their own Part. Then GO always means the stage manager's next call.

6. The Paperwork and the Crew

• Cue sheets — File → Sync, Import & Export → Export Cue Sheet… writes the operator's list, the calling script, the running order and a sheet for each department. See Export Cue Sheets and Console Files.
• The crew board — Settings → Companion puts each department's current and next cue on a tablet backstage. See Cue Lights and the Crew Board.

Related Articles

• Running Your Show
• Timecode Out: LTC, MTC, Art-Net, TCNet
• Timecode Signal Lost & Freewheel