Stage Manager Resources

This page is your go-to resource for stage management tips, tools, and essential gear recommendations for school musicals, community theatre, and youth productions. Whether you’re new to the role or looking to level up your show-calling game, you’ll find practical advice, organizational strategies, printable checklists, and curated product recommendations you can actually use in rehearsals and performances.

This page is still growing, but everything here is built from real productions and real backstage experience. We focus on what works, what lasts, and what saves a show when things get unpredictable.

🧰 Kit List for Stage Managers

Stage managers don’t just carry a kit. They carry the emotional, logistical, and literal weight of the entire show. If something breaks, disappears, squeaks, or mysteriously ends up in the wrong wing, the stage manager (or the nearest theater parent) is expected to fix it immediately and without drama.

Over the years, we’ve learned this the hard way through forgotten props, dark backstage corners, last minute set changes, and that one time someone said, “Does anyone have…?” and everyone turned slowly toward the same person.

This list is built from real shows, real chaos, and real parents who now keep these items permanently in their cars. These are the tools that save rehearsals, tech weeks, and performances, because every show is worth saving. Even the messy ones.

Practical Tools & Kit Basics

These are the foundational tools that live at the core of nearly every working stage manager’s kit. They’re small, reliable, and constantly in use.

  • Multi-Tool Set
    For quick fixes, hardware adjustments, and moments when you need three tools at once and only have two hands.

  • Headlamp or Compact LED Flashlight
    Hands-free lighting for backstage dark areas, cue checks, and quiet fixes without announcing your presence.

  • Architect’s Scale Ruler
    Helpful for measuring set pieces, props, spike marks, and translating ground plans into real-world spacing.

  • Label Maker
    For labeling scripts, grab bags, props, and equipment so everything ends up where it belongs.

  • 25-Foot Tape Measure
    Essential for measuring stage distances, spacing, and confirming that yes, this is exactly where it was yesterday.

  • Compact Tripod (for phones or small cameras)
    Useful for recording rehearsals so blocking, spacing, and transitions can be shared with the team later. A small tripod makes it easy to capture clean reference videos everyone can review before the next rehearsal, and you do not have to deal with shaky arm videos.

Tapes & Marking Tools

If there is one category stage managers never stop replenishing, it’s tape. Different situations require different solutions, and having the right tape at the right moment makes all the difference.

  • Gaffer Tape (multiple colors)
    For marking spike points, quick fixes, and solving problems no one wants to officially acknowledge.

  • Spike Tape Set
    Easy to tear, easy to write on, and removes cleanly without residue. Ideal for temporary marks that still need to be precise.

  • Glow Tape
    Helpful for marking positions in dark areas without distracting performers or pulling focus during a blackout.

  • Alien Tape
    Puts the world back together when it is falling apart. Also holds picture frames on walls. Weird, slightly magical, and absolutely wonderful.

Office & Organizational Essentials

These are the quiet tools that keep rehearsals organized, cue sheets readable, and notes from disappearing into chaos. They also happen to be the items most likely to wander off if you are not paying attention.

  • High-Quality Sharpies (multiple colors)
    Essential for cueing scripts, labeling, and marking anything that needs to be instantly recognizable. Bring more than you think you need, because everyone will steal your Sharpies. Every time.

  • Portable Planner or Notebook
    For rehearsal notes, cue sheets, blocking changes, and the thousand small details that absolutely will be forgotten if you trust yourself to remember them later.

  • Starter Stationery Kit (pens, pencils, clips, sticky notes)
    All the basics in one set, which saves you from borrowing supplies that never quite make it back to you.

  • Post-it Notes
    Easy to stick to scripts, prop tables, doors, mirrors, actors, and parents as they walk out the door. Perfect for reminders, last-minute notes, and answering the question “where is my head?” when something important was definitely supposed to happen today.

Comfort & Personal Gear

Stage management is physical work. These items help you stay functional through long rehearsals, tech week, and performance runs.

  • Compact First Aid Kit
    Bandages and wipes for small bumps backstage and the occasional mystery injury no one remembers happening.

  • Rechargeable Portable Charger
    Keeps phones and tablets powered through long rehearsals and emergency moments when everyone suddenly needs their device.

  • Portable Air Pump
    One of those random tools that ends up being useful in the most unexpected ways. From your own flat tire, to a parent’s car, to the unicycle that suddenly needed air, this is the quiet hero you are very glad to have when something rolls in underinflated. These are the kinds of tools that earn you the “oh my god, you are the best, thank you” moments.

  • Durable Backpack or Tool Bag
    Spacious and compartmentalized for all your kit supplies. Rolling is nice. Your back will thank you later.

Note: Because stage managers combine both technical and administrative duties, high-quality staples (like tapes and measuring tools) are repeatedly cited as the most used items in SM kits.