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Sound for the school play, step by step

For the teacher who’s been handed the music and effects for the play, the musical or the end-of-year show.

So it’s landed on you. The show is in two weeks: twelve songs, a thunderclap, a doorbell and a howling wolf, and nobody’s sure how the laptop plugs into the hall’s sound system. Sound for a school play takes very little kit and a bit of organisation.

1. The kit you actually need

• A laptop running Windows 10 or 11, and its charger.
• Something to play through: the hall’s sound desk and speakers or, if there isn’t a system, a powered speaker (the kind with the amp built in).
• A cable from the laptop’s headphone socket (3.5mm) to the input on the desk or speaker. It’s usually 3.5mm to twin RCA (phono) or 3.5mm to two 1/4-inch jacks: check the inputs before you buy.
• An extension lead and gaffer tape to stick the cable to the floor. Loose cables get tripped over.

Skip the Bluetooth speaker: there’s a noticeable delay, and some switch themselves off after a while in silence. If a hum appears the moment you plug the charger in, that’s a ground loop: a DI box or a ground loop isolator will fix it.

2. Get the music and effects ready

Put every audio file in one folder, and name them with numbers in script order: 01 house music, 02 overture, 03 thunder. At 10pm on dress rehearsal night you’ll be glad you’re not guessing what track7(1).mp3 was.

• Trim the silence off the start and end. If the thunder takes two seconds to arrive, the actor has already said the line. Audacity is free and does the job, or trim each cue in ZasCue.
• Sound effects: Freesound has hundreds of thousands, free, under Creative Commons licences (you need an account to download). Check each one: some ask you to credit the author, say in the programme, and CC BY-NC ones can’t be used to make money. If you’re selling tickets, stick to CC0 or CC BY.
• Nothing streamed on the night: a website means relying on the hall’s Wi-Fi. Have the files on the laptop (MP3 or WAV, either is fine).

3. Build the cue list

Open ZasCue (free) and drag your files onto the window: each one becomes a numbered cue. Then, for each cue:

• Name it after the moment, not the file. “Storm starts” means far more under pressure than “03 thunder”.
• Put the cue line in the Notes: the line or action that triggers it (“when Red says ‘What big teeth you have!’”). The notes for the next cue show in a bar above the list.
• To go from one song to the next, tick On start, fade and stop the others on the incoming cue, set its Fade time (how long the old track takes to go) and give it a Fade in so it doesn’t crash in. Fade out is different: it finishes off the track’s own ending, or the End of the trim if you’ve shortened it.
• Atmospheres (rain, birdsong, a busy playground): under Loop, pick Whole track. It keeps going until a cue with “fade and stop the others” takes it out.
• Two things at once, like rain and a thunderclap? Create a Group (Insert → ＋ Group), then pick it from the Group dropdown on both cues. One GO fires them together.

4. Sounds that don’t come in order: the soundboard

Some sounds don’t wait their turn: the doorbell, a burst of laughter, the “boing” when the clown falls over. That’s what View → Soundboard / Hits is for. Drag your effects onto it and each becomes a button, or “pad”.

Fire a pad with a click or with its own key: click the keyboard icon on the pad, then press the key, say D for doorbell. Pads don’t move the cue list: the next GO stays where it was. Hit a pad twice and you get two, layered.

5. Let a student run it

With the show built, the student has one job: follow the play and press the spacebar when the cue line comes. The highlighted cue plays next, and moves on by itself after every GO.

• View → Operator screen shows what’s playing and what’s next in big type, easy to read in a dark booth. But it fills the window and covers the list, the notes and the soundboard: with it up, pads only fire from their keys, and the cue lines live in the paper script.
• Tools → Lock editing before the audience comes in. GO still works, but nobody can delete or move a cue by accident.
• If something goes wrong: Esc fades everything out, and two quick presses cut it dead. P pauses and resumes everything, in case the show has to stop.
• If the cast skip a scene, the arrow keys ↑ ↓ move the next cue without playing anything.

A real theatre trick: pencil each cue number into the student’s script, on the exact word where it goes. And in rehearsals, call the cues the way stage managers do: “standby sound 7”… “go”.

6. The tech rehearsal

Do at least one full run in the hall, with the real laptop, cable and speakers. Everything sounds fine on headphones; in the room, not always.

• Set the Windows volume once, high, and leave it alone. Set each cue’s level in ZasCue (Volume, in dB), and the overall level on the desk or speaker. Mark the fader position with tape and a pen.
• A full hall sounds quieter: an audience soaks up sound. If you need more, go up on the desk or on ZasCue’s Master, not the laptop’s volume keys.
• Save the show: File → Save puts the cue list and all the audio in one folder. Copy it to a USB stick. On another computer, View → Show warnings flags any missing file.

7. What usually goes wrong

• The computer’s volume. Someone muted it in a lesson. Check it before the doors open.
• Notifications. An email ping in the middle of the big speech. Turn on Do not disturb in Settings → System → Notifications (on Windows 10: Settings → System → Focus assist → Alarms only), and close email and chat.
• Windows sounds. Plug in a USB stick and the chime comes out of the hall speakers too. In the Sound control panel, set the sound scheme to No Sounds.
• Battery, sleep and updates. Keep the laptop plugged in, turn off sleep for the screen and the computer, and pause updates in Windows Update for show week.
• Wi-Fi. ZasCue for Windows works fully offline. The browser version only needs a connection to open: open it before the audience arrives and don’t reload the tab.
• The projector. Plug one in over HDMI and Windows may send the sound to it. Pick the output in Tools → Audio outputs.
• Plan B. If the laptop freezes, File → Recover last session… brings back the autosaved show. If it dies, the USB folder opens on another machine: keep a copy of ZasCue.exe on the same stick.

8. If the school won’t let you install anything

ZasCue for Windows is one file: nothing to install and no admin rights needed. The first time, Windows may show a blue “Windows protected your PC” box; click “More info”, then “Run anyway”.

If IT blocks programs altogether, or you’re on a Mac or Linux, use the browser version: it’s the same app, it opens in Chrome and there’s nothing to install.

To make the case to the head (or principal) or to IT (licences, locked-down PCs, student data), see A free QLab alternative for schools.

Frequently asked questions

What do I need to run sound for a school play?

A laptop and charger, a cable to the hall’s sound desk or a powered speaker, and free cue software such as ZasCue.

Can a student run the sound?

Yes. Once the show is built, they just press the spacebar on each cue. Lock editing first so nothing changes by accident.

What if the school won’t let me install software?

ZasCue for Windows is a single file: no installer, no admin rights. If that’s blocked too, the browser version is the same app, in Chrome.

Keep reading

• How to run sound for a play on Windows
• Dance recital music: from the running order to show night
• Theatre sound cue software for Windows: an honest guide

QLab® is a registered trademark of Figure 53, LLC. ZasCue is not affiliated with or endorsed by Figure 53.