Typical Lighting Plot

You can add extra columns for other useful information, like the act, scene or page number. This chart is for a control board with 18 channels and two presets, one preset has red coloured fader knobs (R = red) and the other preset has green coloured fader knobs (G = green).

Q	Cue	Time	Type	Action	Levels
0	Opening Light			Rį	13/8 14/9 15/4 16/F
1	Stage Manager	2s	BUILD	Gį Rā	3/5 5/4 8/7 11/6 14/9
2	Alan enters	2 min	CHECK	By hand on G	14/3+
3	Lamp switched on	SNAP	BUILD	Rį Gā	1/5 2-4/7 5/4 6/6 7-12/7
4	Alan "Oh heck!"	30s	CHECK	Gį Rā	2-5/6 8-10/6 11/5 13/8
5	Bill slams door	3s	FBO	Gā

The Cue Number and the verbal or visual Cue that initiates the lighting change. This verbal or visual cue might be given by the Stage Manager.

Time in seconds. Snap is instant.

Build = brighter; Check = darker; FBO = blackout

Preset:
R = Red
G = Green

Resultant brightness levels of the lighting channels after the lighting change has taken place. In Q 0, channel 13 is set to 8; channel 14 is set to 9; channel 15 is set to 4; channel 16 is set to Full. In Q2 channel 14 is set to 3 "and a bit".

Opening Light

The "Opening Light" is whatever you have chosen to illuminate the stage with before the play starts, and is often used again in the interval and after the end of the play. As the main stage curtains (tabs) are traditionally red this might mean using some red floodlights to illuminate the curtains. Using white light will show up all the imperfections in the tabs and the red will give a warm atmosphere.

If your production starts with open tabs or you do not have any, you could highlight certain features of the set to a moderate brightness. If you make this illumination fairly patchy by only lighting one, two or three areas it will be easily distinguishable from the full stage lighting.