I have the Palm III and a few productions ago, I used it when I stage managed. In the PDA's 'To Do' list, I broke each scene into it's parts and used the list as my props list. This worked out VERY well. The list allows me to put a check mark next to the items that I have placed or had placed by someone else. I also put in certain cue lines and the action it took. I no longer had a clipboard of papers to keep track of, I just put my Palm back in my pouch when I was done with it.
Another nice thing about it is that it is back-lit! This allowed me to view the list during black-outs or dark scenes.
I'm not sure if the cheaper PDAs have the back light or a 'To Do' list feature, but it might be something for some SMs to check out. I'm glad I have mine.
Another thing I did in our past production of West Side Story was to use Microsoft's Power Point to draw out the scene changes. PowerPoint is pretty easy to draw with and the best feature of all is that you can type notes per slide (scene) and print those notes at the bottom of the printed page. This is where I would write what has to be changed, cue lines, reminders, and other important notes on the scene coming up. I then took the print outs and posted them on the wall on either side of the back stage. I've had a few people tell me how nice it was to know what exactly was coming up...this is both from crew and cast members. It also made my job easier since the crew was up to date with any changes we made during tech week. I've attached a .jpg image of one of my West Side scenes so that you can see what it looks like. I'm not sure if this is something that's always used in theaters, but to me, it's new. (11/28/00)
Submitted by Kris Kauker