Okay, so does anyone have a brand name and/or model for this perfect stopwatch that doesn't beep? Seems everywhere I go they're in plastic boxes and impossible to really test. I have lucked out lately with ones that are fairly quiet even though they do beep, so it hasn't been terrible.
I also tend to use the stopwatch in moments where the beep doesn't really matter. For rehearsals I'll use it to start the breaks so I can keep an eye. But as for timing actual things in the show, I make up a run sheet where I start the stopwatch at zero for a runthrough, then put a running countdown on an Excel document of every thing that happens. Can be a little intense during a runthrough, but I've done it so much I've got really good at multitasking with this (or writing it in script and putting in the document later). If possible, I time every single entrance and exit, scene shift, and if it's a show with not too many cues, I'll also take the timing each sound cue or major thing happens. This way I have all sorts of things that I can later do the math on (actress exits at 5:10 and re-enters at 15:20 so therefore has 10 minutes and 10 seconds to change). You never know exactly what someone will want to know the length of, let alone if your board op wants to know if he has time to pee.
The most amazing use I had of this once was when an actress playing Ophelia in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead went into an asthma episode....I worked directly with the EMTs on the scene...they gave me certain parameters they needed (so much time to give her the shot, so much time for her to sit still, so much time she'd be fine again, etc) and with them and the stage manager (I was assisting at the time) we figured out which scenes she could do, which she could be cut from, and ultimately how to administer the medication by EMT (they were the ones who said she'd be okay to keep performing). Strange but true. And the audience never knew.
Erin