Theatre superstitions

[Gyro]

Yeah. I got my start in community theatre. Do you handle the community theatre’s box office or do they do their own ticket sales? Back in the day, we always opted for handling our own box office whenever possible even when we were playing at an outside venue. Letting someone else work your tickets is an added expense but sometimes the venues won’t allow the renters to set up their own ticket counter. Times have certainly changed. Local newspapers are essentially non-existent, and those that are still in the business seldom have the money to hire reviewers - even as stringers. When I go on-line to check out the local arts scene I seldom see a review for anything - theatre, opera, dance, music, none of it gets a review anymore. This lack of interest by local press is killing the arts. Hardly anybody goes to see a play anymore.

 

[Peeps]

Personally, I’d respect theatre tradition and my fellow actors and not say it. Just because you don’t believe in the superstition doesn’t mean you have a right to stress out other performers who do.

You’re absolutely right! Thank you for saying this

It’s a question of kindness.

Disclaimer–I have a daughter in the theater business, and she always respects everyone working with the show, whether she agrees with them or not. When people’s livelihoods depend on a “good show,” it makes sense that even if you personally don’t believe in a tradition, you respect the others who DO believe, and do whatever you can to help them be at peace and ready to put on a great show!

 

[Gyro]

Oh, here’s another one. It isn’t actually a superstition, but its so self-evident that it rises to the level of a “never do this” in theatre, and that is, Never use live animals on stage. Animals will not do what you want them to do. Horses will buck, dogs’ll start barking, cats will run away and hide. They don’t like the lights. They don’t like all the shouting that occurs on stage, and the audience scares the daylights out of them.

 

[Phemie]

Do you handle the community theatre’s box office or do they do their own ticket sales? Back in the day, we always opted for handling our own box office whenever possible even when we were playing at an outside venue. Letting someone else work your tickets is an added expense but sometimes the venues won’t allow the renters to set up their own ticket counter.

We handle it. We have even handled the ticketing for the town arena a couple of times, though that was a major PITA because of what our ticketing system was like and we’ve decided not to do that again.

Our arts community is small. I had done the ticket selling & canteen for the community theatre and the arts council as a volunteer for more than a decade before this theatre opened and I was hired as admin assistant. We are run by a board of directors and originally most of them were part of the community theatre, as was the first manager. The Box Office clerk and I were also part of the community theatre, she as an actor, I as everything from actor to stage manager and everything in between (building set, running lights and sound, and directing a couple of times).

In this job I do a lot of the promotion, the maintenance of the ticketing system, the banking, the bookkeeping.

I split the box office duties with the box office clerk, each one of us working Thursday to Wednesday so that we are in the building every week, and as much night time and weekend work as necessary. We have only one point of sale so on show nights one deals with the money and one does the ticket printing. We do pretty much everything that needs doing, whether that’s moving tables to the stage for our dinner theatres and “up close and personal” café series concerts or taping down cables.

 

[TheHolyTrinity]

 

[Phemie]

Oh, here’s another one. It isn’t actually a superstition, but its so self-evident that it rises to the level of a “never do this” in theatre, and that is, Never use live animals on stage. Animals will not do what you want them to do. Horses will buck, dogs’ll start barking, cats will run away and hide. They don’t like the lights. They don’t like all the shouting that occurs on stage, and the audience scares the daylights out of them.

We’ve used a dog before with no problem. I also had a rat in the play “A Day in the Death of Joe Egg”. Joe Egg’s mom took it out of the cage and played with it in one scene. No boring hamsters for me.

 

[Gripper]

You beat me to it, I was actually watching that one last night.