Com Plots

Com Plot is short for Communications Plot. It is how you intend on communicating with the rest of the crew working on the show. It is how the designers will communicate with you during tech. It is how your assistants will communicate with you throughout the process. You should provide your Com Plot to both your Sound Designer and your Master Electrician prior to loading in your show. This allows them to prep the materials necessary to add to their load in lists.

There are two aspects to the com plot. One is the headset communication and the other is the cue light communication. Sound generally handles headsets and belt packs while electricians generally deal with the cue light communication. Both are essential to complicated productions. Simple productions may not require cue lights. But, let's start with headset variety.

AUDIO COMMUNICATIONS:

Com systems come in two methods. Wired and wireless. Most theatres will use a combination of both. Wired is dependable MOST of the time while wireless has it's challenges. In either case, a brief discussion with your sound designer should help you determine what is possible and what is not.

The default standard headset communications in the theatre industry is Clear Com. They are not the only players in the game but they are what most people refer to therefore I will assume that there is a base knowledge of communication systems such as Clear Com's channel lay out.

Most wired Com systems will be a four channel system. There are two channel systems out there but I do not recommend them. Four channel is preferred. If you are a total novice a channel controls communications along a single path. Since they are generally designated by alphabet, any one on channel A can speak to any other person on channel A. Anyone on channel B can speak to any other person on channel B, etc. on through channel D. There is a normal manner in divvying up the channels. Most people will use the following:

Channel A - General Channel (Deck, Rail, Automation, Winches, etc)

Channel B - Lighting

Channel C - Sound

Channel D - Dressing Rooms

Certainly there is no hard and fast rule that it has to be this way but I have always found it useful and have stuck with it.

On wired systems each person has to have at the very least a belt pack, headset, and cable. The cable plugs into the appropriate wall outlet. These also are labeled Channel A, B, C, and D. The outlets you are plugging into have to have amplifier attached but that is really your sound persons concern and not yours. The stage manager is expected to know the difference between the channels and how to plug in and out back stage.

Wireless headsets plug into a single channel and generally have six headsets that go with it. So a wired system that has a wireless system attached to it can have six wireless channels on Channel A. This allows for greater freedom of movement backstage if you are not trailing a wire behind you. The chief complaint about wireless systems are their reach. One of our theatres is largely constructed of cinder block. The dressing rooms are downstairs. The wireless headsets will not reach downstairs so going downstairs cuts off your communication. The other theatres also have major construction headaches with wireless headsets. in either case I always insist on a wired backup on either side of stage in case the wireless breaks down.

Walkie-talkies are very useful in areas where communication is going to be difficult. Either from obstructions or blocked views, walkie-talkies have a farther reach and can be extremely useful. Where I first encountered walkie-talkies tied directly into the Clear Com system was at Radio City Music Hall. It made perfect sense. With the stage being a street block wide and a stage that went down three levels, the walkie-talkies could reach basically everywhere. We got very used to using the walkies and developed our own short hand for working with them. Repeaters increase the distance of the walkie-talkies as well. The only complaint people have with the walkies are the fact that they don't duplex. In other words, only one person can talk at a time. It is very useful to have enough walkie-talkies to include the house manager as well.

Walkie-talkies come with earpieces and microphones so you don't have to deal with loudness levels during shows. The headsets we like to use actually conduct the sound through the bones in your head keeping your ears free.

Laying out your Audio Communications part of your Com Plot is simple if you know all of the components. A list of most common components are listed below:

• Headsets: These come in the single muff (covers one ear) or double muff (covers both ears) variety. Most theatrical productions will prefer the single muff headset.
• Belt Packs: These are the boxes that the headsets plug in to. These come in a couple of varieties. Most will be a single channel in with an out to a headset but also useful is a double in which allows a person to switch back and forth between channels. Very useful if your followspots are on a different channel than the lighting designer.
• Hand Sets: These look like a phone with a button on the inside. The button, when activated, allows the person holding the hand set to speak back to the person speaking to them on the hand set. Conductors and audio mixers like to use hand sets so that there hands and ears can remain free for obvious reasons.
• Bitch Box: Honestly these have a an actual name but I have never heard it actually used. It is a box that is put on the wall with a speaker in it so the person can monitor a conversation without having to use their hands. Often there is a button or handset for response back to the stage manager. You will mostly find these on the fly rail and in dressing rooms.
• Base Station: This is the main station for communications. It generally sits with the stage manager. It has all four channels and the stage manager can switch back and forth between the channels. They can talk to all the channels at one time or one channel at a time. Channels are flexible so you can choose to only hear a channel or only speak to a channel. I will explain the channel breakdown later.
• Remote Station: This is usually tied to the base station and is an extension of the base station for use at the tech table. It has the same functionality as the base station.
• Cable: Sometimes called 'tails'. You need to specify any odd requests for cable. The designer will figure out the normal runs but if you want the deck stage manager to have a longer run than usual you would need to specify that.
• God Mic: Short for "the voice of God" is the name given to a microphone that feeds into the auditorium. It is used to convey information and to stop the show when necessary. During performances it is rarely used unless it is necessary to communicate to the audience.

Also remember that the com plot for the tech of the show will be different than the com plot for the run of the show. You should provide both.

Our theatre recently renovated and we have a row mid house that is wired for the tech tables. We have additional power, com, and internet flexibility. Therefore you will see more than one tech table listed. Obviously if you have only one then you would only include one. An example of a simple audio portion of a com plot may look something like this:

As a disclaimer - a lot of this was written before wireless and the internet had exploded into our world as it has today. Much of this is still good information. Now we have addressable systems allowing you to customize your channels any way you may want them. There are matrixes you can set up that allow you to post and group people in ways you've never been able to do before. With bluetooth, more systems are coming on line that would allow you to customize your phone to be an intercom system. Work with your sound designer and the systems you have. Most of this information is for academic reference.

Com Plot - All My Sons - Playhouse Stage

CHANNEL A=General Channel

CHANNEL B=Lighting

CHANNEL C=Sound

CHANNEL D=Dressing Room

For run of show please move base station to booth and light board audio to booth. You can eliminate the lighting designer and sound designer equipment.

A more complicated one may look like this (these are for example only, you should analyze the needs of your production and what your staff is capable of and make your decisions based on that).

Kiss Me, Kate - Com Plot - Playhouse Theatre

Tech Table - Stage Manager and Lighting

Base Station or Remote Station Stage Manager

Single Muff Headset Stage Manager

Walkie-talkie interface Stage Manager

God Mic #1 Stage Manager

Single Muff Headset Lighting Designer

Two Channel Beltpack, Channels B&C Lighting Designer

Single Muff Headset Lite Board Operator

Belt Pack, Channel B Lite Board Operator

Single Muff Headset Assistant Lighting Designer

Belt Pack, Channel C

God Mic #2 Director

Tech Table - Sound

Single Muff Headset Sound Designer

Belt Pack, Channel A

Tech Table - Automation

Single Muff Headset Technical Director

Belt Pack, Channel A

Orchestra Pit - Conductor

Hand Set and Belt Pack Channel A Conductor

Four First Cove House Positions - Followspots

4 Single Muff Headsets, Belt Packs, Channel C

Sound Board

Hand Set and Belt Pack, Channel A Mixer

Single Muff Headset and Belt Pack, Channel A Sound Board Operator

Fly Rail

Bitch Box w/ Handset Flymen

Stage

SR - Single Muff Headset ASM

Belt Pack, Channel A

Long tail (25')

SL - Single Muff Headset ASM

Belt Pack, Channel A

Long tail (25')

Winch UR

Single Muff Headset Winch Operator

Belt Pack, Channel A

Winch UL

Single Muff Headset Winch Operator

Belt Pack, Channel A

Walkie-talkie ASM

Walkie-talkie ASM

CHANNEL A = General, ASM, Winch, Conductor, Sound, Rail

CHANNEL B = Lighting

CHANNEL C = Followspot

CHANNEL D = Dressing Room

Here I have added in walkie-talkies for the assistant stage managers. If you have a wireless system you can replace the walkie information. Also note the channel changes. Channel A is the general channel and has a lot of traffic assigned to it. Conductor and Sound have been moved there opening up Channel C for the followspots. Spot callers need to talk to the follow spot operators a lot more than would be beneficial if they were on the lighting channel. Therefore I have assigned them their own channel.

CUE LIGHTS:

I am a big fan of cue lights. If you don't know, cue lights are lights placed around the stage and on the fly rail to cue events. You turn the light on as a warning and you turn it off as a GO. Those events can be actors making entrances, crews to begin a shift, Peter Pan to fly on stage, winches to operate, or drops to fly in and out. As the stage manager you determine where you need cue lights and you provide this information to the master electrician prior to tech and in plenty of time for him or her to install. I like to include it with the sound information so both have the information at Load In. With cue lights it is always important that the install two bulbs or lamps at each place. That way if one burns out there is always a back up.

There is nothing fancy about these cue lights. For years Broadway and Off-Broadway was run by nothing more than zip cord and toggle switches. They also come in tons of varieties. Certainly LED lights have made it possible to run low voltage lights all over the place. How ever your theatre chooses to run them is perfectly fine. The only thing you need to make sure is covered is that you have independent control over each set of lights. So for example, you have two doors on stage and you have a cue light going to each - you would want to be able to control each cue light individually. You label them in white tape at your cue light control station.

The biggest challenge (and complaint) is that two control stations have to be set up. One in the booth or backstage depending on where you are calling the show from and one at the tech table. This bears serious discussion with your Master Electrician. If you are doing shows on a regular basis it might be best to install a permanent system so that the set up and take down for each show is minimized. If you are there for one show then a permanent solution would not be necessary. Coming out of the UK are hard wired systems called blues and whites. Don't confuse these with cue light system. The blues refer to running lights and the whites refer to work lights. In union theatres it is very useful to have blues and whites installed. Especially on touring shows as it can give the company the ability to turn on the work lights without having to have a lot of people on call during a rehearsal or understudy call.

Cue lights systems are currently being designed now and are available. Some are wireless and programmable and others are linked with ethernet cable and addressable for even greater flexibility. Please be sure to do your research.

In some cases operators will have to wear headsets. In others you may have redundancies. For example: A winch operator may have both a cue light and headset. The headset is there for back up in case of emergencies. You can flash the call button on your base station and it will flash on their belt pack. That way they know you need to talk with them. But they will be cued off the cue lights. I prefer cue lights to cue on winch and rail activities - it allows me to 'finesse' the cue in ways that I can't if I am merely relying on talking. I can only say go so fast and so many times. With cue lights I can start a winch or drop moving inside the period it takes me to say GO for a blackout and the time it takes for the lights to decay to black. This allows me to finesse the shift to best match the tempo of the show.

RAIL CUE LIGHTS:

You can run rail cues off of a single light but I don't recommend it. It is my preference that tandem lights be set up downstage, mid stage, and upstage on the fly rail. This allows a flyman visual access to a cue light from any point on the fly rail. At each location I prefer to have three colors of light. The color you choose does not really matter. I prefer Red, Yellow, and Blue. Therefore for my three positions I would have a total of 18 colored lights. At each location I would have two Reds, two Yellows, and two Blues. At my calling station however I would have only three switches. One for Red, one for Yellow and one for Blue. Each switch would control the corresponding six colored lights on the rail. It sounds more complicated than it actually is.

VIDEO:

Video feeds are becoming more common now and necessary in many cases. Four camera systems are more common and can be purchased for a nominal price from box stores like Cosco and Sams Club. It is common to request a front of house feed if you're calling from backstage. An overhead is useful for you and the winch operator if he's driving scenery on and off stage, and a conductor feed is essential when you're doing a musical. Many a cue is taken off the conductor's baton so if you don't have direct line of sight, request a conductor feed.

In my school, video is a product of the sound department. It may be it's own department in some theatre's, especially in schools with large auditoriums. Regardless of whose responsibility it is, you should determine early on what feeds you are going to need to run your show and make sure the right department gets the information. Wireless is becoming more common, but if you don't have wireless then it's a lot of cable, just like cue lights. The planning process for video is the same as cue lights and the department responsible will want to layout the cable runs in advance to determine if they have enough cable for that particular show. The good news is that once front of house and conductor feeds are run they can be used over and over again rather than having to set it up each time.

Here is an older power point presentation that I have used in class. It should give you some ideas to support the above information. With today's digital revolution in mid swing many things are changing and trying to keep up is a losers proposition. There are cue lights built into lighting systems these days. There are new com systems coming on line. Use this information as you can as it will remain a guide post for the foreseeable future. But recognize that these are principles of communications in a developing environment.