How Many Cues are in a Musical?

Broadway and National Tours can easily have over 1,000 cues in total for musicals. Broadway will tend towards the higher end of this scale, and smaller musicals at regional or community theaters will usually have less cues. Plays will typically have even less than musicals. Between Lights, Sound, Projections, Automation, Deck, and Fly cues, they can add up quickly.

What is a Cue?

A cue is an action or set of actions that will be carried out when the “Go” is given. For some of these they are a simple push of a button to change the lighting, while others are an entire scene change with a dozen people working in tandem to complete the cue. Although I called it simple, it is a bit of an understatement about how modern technology takes a complex task and simplifies it to a single button push with the help of a computer and preprogramming. For example, The Lion King on broadway uses close to 600 lighting fixtures to light the show, and the light board can be programmed to control all of them individually to add complexity and nuance to the lighting design.

Cue “GO”s are called by the Stage Manager of the production. If you are interested in learning more, read my article What Does a Stage Manager Do?

How many Cues Are In a Broadway musical?

On broadway, close to 1,000 cues total isn’t uncommon when including all cues in the production. Hamilton has 856 light cues. The Lion King on broadway has 510 light cues. A Chorus Line on broadway had about 200 light cues. Although lighting will typically have to most cues, many of the other technical elements involved at this level can add up quickly. Hamilton has 40 called Scenic/Automation cues alone. There can be easily 100 sound, scenic, projection, and fly-rail cues added on to the light cues on large shows. To give an example, The opening number of The Lion King has 31 light cues, 7 fly-rail cues, and 1 automation cue that are all called by the Stage Manager.

How Many Cues Are In a Regional Musical?

In regional theatre, around 600 cues is the upper edge of normal, with 300 on average. Due to time, budget, and scale limitations on regional productions there isn’t usually enough resources to create as many cues as on broadway. There are limited people on the tech team, and not enough time for those people to create many more cues than this.

Musicals in regional theatre can be done to a recorded music track instead of a live orchestra. These cues can add to the number of cues overall, but often the sound op will take those cues on their own. This means that tracks become cues and sound effects can be programmed into the tracks, or taken separately when needed. While this sounds simple, it is much less forgiving should the actor get off the track, since there is no conductor to help them recover.

How many cues does a play have?

Straight Plays (non-musical theatre) tend to have far fewer cues because they just aren’t necessary most of the time. Plays average 25-100 light cues, though some productions require more. Sound cues tend to play a larger factor in the total number on plays since there won’t be an orchestra to create cues live. On a play, 200 cues total would be pretty busy show, with most coming in under 100 cues.

how are cues called?

In theatre, the Stage Manager calls all cues to the board ops controlling their individual systems or crew members on the stage, and they execute their cues when they hear the word “Go” fro the Stage Manager. Cues will receive labels for clarity which will usually be numbers, and the Stage Manager will say the cue department, the cue number, then “go”. Say the next cue to be called is a light cue which is number 187, the Stage Manager will say “Lights 187, Go.” and the board op will trigger their cue as soon as they hear “Go”. Interestingly, the Stage Manager must call the Go verbally a moment before the actual cue needs to be executed, so the board op has time to react and hit their cue in the intended moment.

Here are some typical department names and their possible cue labels which will accompany their cue number when called.

Here is a video of the Production Stage Manager for Hamilton calling cues before a performance to showcase what Stage Managers do.