I know this thread has been quiet for a couple of months, but I wanted to put my 2 cents in! My
current show, a professional production of
La Cage aux Folles has only me (the SM) and the operator (who is operating LX and also sound playback) on coms (the MD, sound op and ASM have coms but they're only on them at the beginning of each half, or if there's an problem). It's quite a complex show, with a good number of cues, including some music cues (the music is partially tracked) which have to start at exactly the right moment due to there being a bar of click
fed to the band before the actual music starts. If we were to restrict our conversations to show-related convos or calling cues, we'd both be bored out of our trees (we're nine weeks into a 12-week run), minds would wander elsewhere and cues would be missed. As it is, we have conversations about anything and everything under the sun. I
call the standbys at the correct time, and the conversation stops wherever it happens to be; we have silence until the
cue, and when the
cue has gone, the conversation continues. True, we didn't do this at the start of the run; conversations were limited until we were both familiar with the show - this wasn't ever "agreed" between us, but the conversations just grew as the familiarity did. It also helps that I've worked with the operator a lot and we understand each other very well, and have a fantastic working relationship, but certainly as an SM I can have a conversation on
headset, keep one eye on the
monitor (I
call from backstage) and the other eye on my script without any difficulty. Should there be more people on headsets, I'd probably have to be stricter, but I'm not one for keeping
headset talk to the absolutely necessary only. So long as people shut up during standbys, and don't talk too loudly, I don't object to coms conversations. I have a vivid recollection of one show (probably ten or twelve people on headsets) where we had some very long gaps between cues and the head flyman read us Dr Seuss stories on
headset every night....