Who's more important?

in my opinion. the sm, ld/pa, and spot ops, and flymen should be the only ones on coms. only head people in all areas should have one. if you have more than one person on coms in the same area such as carps, they all talk and ask questions and nobody else can talk and then cues are missed.
 
in my opinion. the sm, ld/pa, and spot ops, and flymen should be the only ones on coms. only head people in all areas should have one. if you have more than one person on coms in the same area such as carps, they all talk and ask questions and nobody else can talk and then cues are missed.

This sounds very amateur. If your crews can't keep from chatting then you have a bigger problem. Just because you have a couple people from the same department on coms doesn't mean they will sit around and chat. Ultimately, anyone who needs to be cued directly from the SM either needs to be on coms or in view of a cue light. If that means that a couple props people or two deck electricians, or anyone needs to be on they should be.

This is also why god invented multi-channel coms.
 
Sound definately needs a comms, as well as their RF tech backstage. I've been through plenty of situations, both professional and educational where a mic has either gone done or was sweated out and had to be replaced. I need to communicate that to my wireless wrangler, and radios make too much noise.

I've never done a show yet where it was imperative that the conductor/music director needed to be on comms. If we're short on beltpacks (our weakness), I make sure at least one person in every position has one. The Muny and most touring shows have a comms handset at the conductor's podium, but it's not used too often. Cue lights, as mentioned, are a better way to cue the top of the show or the top of act II.

If people have to talk over one another on comms constantly, it's time for a multichannel system; one for SM calls/emergencies, one for everything else. The Muny uses 4 channels: one for SM calls, one for electrics, one for sound, and I think the 4th is for the deck crew. All supplemented by Motorola radios.
 
Sound, lights, spots, SM and ASMs need to be on coms/headsets. Q-lights for the conductor should be just fine, and won't cost that much to rig....who knows, you probably have enough scrap stuff lying around to build a set. If that doesn't work, I agree with Destrox and Chris above....let the conductor/orchestra take cues from house lights dimming, etc.
 
I agree with the consensus, that the engineer should be on com while the conductor need not be (unless so desired and capable).

A few theatres use the telephone-style system for the FoH sound engineer, because he/she needs to pay attention to the show, not the comm traffic.
Another common practice, is that the engineer, have a SWITCHABLE com, channel 1 for the SM and all the others (lights, etc), and channel 2 for the SM, engineer and backstage sound, and other sound. This is so that the sound people who don't have to hear all the CUE chatter can talk in an emergency. Also allows for if one channel goes down, people can switch to the other.

For example when I did No, No, Nanette I was too busy with my thousands of cues, to bother with the SM and LX and playback and their cue calling. My hands never left the console unless there was a problem with a mic, and I'd 'ring' the backstage sound crew to get them to fix it.
 
ive done a lot of musicals in my time and I think the sound guy should have it cause they need it for more reasons than the pit director. especially (im also in a lot music programs at my college as well) since the pit director needs to be able to keep time in his heand and clearly and quickly communicate with his players...which is especially hard to do when other people are talking in your ear. also generally the pit goes with the actors more than anything else especially in HS
 
In my little theatre we all (meaning myself running both lights, sound and spot all at the same time, the stage Manager, and the Accompanist) take our cues from eachother. The Accompanist is never on comm. only myself and the stage manager. I Think it is more important that the SM and the Booth have the communication. If your conductor is any good at all he/she should be able cover should something go wrong. The conductor can take his or her cues from lights. As for the cue lights..... they can be prgrammed into the board. If not take down the master slider and bring it back up to cue the conductor. Just an Idea.
 

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