Personal Narrative: My First Stage Observation

As you walk through the large wooden doors of the red carpeted lobby, the magic of the theatre overwhelms you. You hand your ticket to one of the ushers and they smile and hand you a crisp glossy copy of a beautifully crafted program. He wears freshly pressed slacks of a deep black, and his hair is gelled perfectly into position. Together, you step through another set of heavy wooden doors and into the house of the theatre. With the usher as your guide, you weave through hundreds of crimson velvet seats bearing small plates the color of new pennies. After about a minute, you arrive at your assigned seat and the well dressed man wishes you a wonderful evening and leaves to assist another audience member. Waiting for the show to begin, you decide to look through your program. Headshots and biographies of the actors and characters amuse you for a short period of time, but then you begin to notice that there are more people involved in the show than you had originally thought. Pages and pages of credits for everything from stagehands and …show more content…
With the help of my previous directors and fellow performers, I made it my mission to learn all about the process of putting on a show. First I spoke with my high school theatre teacher, Erin West, about choosing a show. She explained that before anything can happen you must secure the right to perform a show. To request these rights, you must fill out a lengthy application. When I asked Mrs. West about these applications, she said, “For some shows, the application is really short and it’s easy to get permission, but with some of the more well known shows, the application is really long. You have to tell them what dates you will be performing, where you will be performing, how many seats the theatre has, how much tickets will be, what time the show will be, and many other