Prompt book

Modern prompt books will tend to be constructed using binders with multiple tab dividers, with the page of the production attached to a larger sheet of paper to provide more margin space for taking notes.

Generally a lead stage manager will keep the master book, which is then copied by assistants on a nightly basis to account for any new information inserted during rehearsals, productions, and meetings.

[1] As audience expectations for spectacle evolved in the 19th century, prompt books were published to describe the techniques involved in constructing complex scenery and special effects.

[2] While at Hofstra, Francis Ford Coppola learned about the idea of a prompt book, so he used the technique to produce his 1972 Paramount release of The Godfather.

In a three-ring binder he kept an "annotated copy of the novel, scene-by-scene breakdowns, notes on the times and setting, cliches to avoid and casting ideas.

Pages from the American actress Charlotte Cushman 's prompt-book for a production of Hamlet at the Washington Theater, 1861
Prompt book for Radamisto, 1720
The prompt book from a 1874 staging of Hamlet by English actor and manager Henry Irving