Front of House: Observations from a Decade on the Aisle (18 page)

Set to the tune of “Prima Donna” from
The Phantom of the Opera,
music by Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber; lyrics by Denise Reich and James Muro.

Prima donna, she always calls in sick!

It’s pretty clear, she’s never here to perform.

She always backs out when they’re calling her name,

The management does not adore her.

Prima donna, she’s never on the stage,

They’re in a rage because she’s breaching her contract,

She’ll never work in this town again,

Sing prima donna, no more!

(Enter: actress who called in sick
AGAIN)

Prima donna? I always have the flu,

It’s really true, I had the flu, please believe me!

I only miss five or six shows every week,

It’s really not a huge ordeal.

Prima donna?! My understudy’s fair,

She’s only there because she can wear my costume!

She should be grateful that she’s got this gig,

To be a prima donna like me!

Ever dream about being naked in public? Most people have. I can’t say it’s high on my nocturnal play list, but I concur that losing one’s clothes in a public place is a very legitimate fear to have. A corollary fear: tearing one’s clothes to the point where they’re no longer functional.

It was close to half-hour and I was beginning to panic about the gaping hole in my skirt. I’d torn it accidentally and it was a ragged, sad mess. I didn’t have a sewing kit on me, and even if I had, the damage was too severe to mend. The most I could hope for was to suture it together with safety pins and pray that it would hold up, or at least prevent me from flashing the patrons, for the rest of the night. The only problem was that nobody had any pins.

As I began to completely melt down, someone finally suggested checking with the Wardrobe department. If anyone had pins, it would be them. I was nervous about going backstage to an unfamiliar area, so I dragged my colleague Phil along with me.

The costume shop was an explosion of color. Lush fabric was scattered on shelves and racks; costumes were lined up in neat rows, and elaborate headpieces rested on mannequin heads. If I hadn’t been in a panic, I would have been fascinated.

The wardrobe crew didn’t bat an eyelash at the two ushers who had wandered into their domain; they simply waited for us to tell them why we were there.

“Do any of you have a safety pin?” I stammered. As they raised their eyebrows, I realized how silly the question was in the middle of this fashion wonderland. They probably had boxes and boxes of pins. They probably had stock in a pin manufacturer. “I’ve ripped my skirt. I don’t think I can save it, so I just want to avoid flashing the audience and keep it in one piece until I get home.” I lifted my hands to show them the gaping hole. It was heartbreaking, really; I liked the skirt and I wasn’t happy about having to throw it away.

One of the wardrobe masters hopped down from his chair, walked over to me, asked for the skirt, and gave me a beach towel to cover myself up. Instead of pinning my skirt, he sat down at his table with a needle and thread and proceeded to repair it for me.

I was half dressed and wrapped in a beach towel in the wardrobe room of a Broadway show. That might have been situation normal for the actors, who were perhaps well accustomed to making quick changes in the wings, but for me it was a whole new world. Phil and I laughed with the wardrobe master as his hands danced across the fabric of my skirt. True to his word, he very shortly stood up, shook my skirt out, and handed it back to me. He’d completely mended it with small, even stitches, and he’d done so in such a way that the original tear was imperceptible. I wasn’t going to have to chuck the skirt after all.

It’s been nearly eight years since my skirt was mended backstage at
Phantom.
I still have it, it’s still in one piece, and the stitches are still holding fast.

Many of the backstage crew members at
Phantom
were as generous and kind-hearted as the ones in Wardrobe department. Most of the staff and actors kept to themselves; the ones with whom we interacted were generally lovely.

The stage managers and others on the production team went out of their way to include the ushers, bartenders and merch sellers in all of the activities that went on around the theater. We were always invited to parties large and small; we always received production gifts at Christmas. One year it was a fleece red scarf embroidered with the
Phantom
logo. If you’ve seen the show you get this; if not, a red scarf plays a prominent role in Christine Daaé’s back story. When I had friends visiting New York, the chief makeup artist was sometimes able to bring them backstage to meet the Phantom. One of the crew members even took some guests of mine on a backstage tour and let me climb to the top of the proscenium and walk around on the catwalk to see the golden angel up close.

During Girl Scout cookie season everyone stalked Felix. His daughter was a scout, and I have no doubt that she reached the top fundraising tier every year thanks to
Phantom.
Cast, crew and front of house alike bought boxes and boxes of cookies. Felix delivered full cases of Thin Mints and Tagalongs to some of us. Even after cookie time had wound down, you could occasionally find people wandering up to Felix’s booth to ask if his daughter maybe, possibly, perhaps had any stray boxes that hadn’t been sold. Felix and I both spoke French and liked the same baseball team; those two topics alone provided endless hours of deep conversation.

When Felix wasn’t there, an Orthodox priest who happened to also be a theater tech sometimes covered his spot. One of the ushers would always ask him for a blessing. Since he was in a tiny booth for the entire show, Phil and I joked that he was the Priest in a Box. He took it in good humor.

There were only a handful of back of house folks who seemed openly contemptuous of the ushers. Unfortunately, one of these unpleasant individuals had the ability to directly impede the front of house staff, since he controlled access to the building as the day doorman. He flatly refused to allow ushers to enter the theater via the stage door. His stance was absolutely and totally wrong; the ushers had just as much of a right to use that entrance as any other employees, and company policy backed that up. This asshole, however, would actually make the ushers walk all the way around the block to the front of the Majestic instead of letting them go in through the stage door. He would also refuse to buzz them in when they rang the bell at the locked gate at the end of the stage door alley. For the rest of this essay, we shall refer to him as Le Sot, which essentially means “the fool” in French.

Fortunately, since he only worked days, I didn’t have to interact with Le Sot very much. The night doorman was his polar opposite, as well. However, on matinee days Le Sot was a looming, hostile presence, and on one occasion he almost cost me a show’s wages. I was on the C/E subway line en route to the matinee, and there was a major issue of some sort. My train stopped for several long minutes in the tunnel between stations, proceeded to trundle slowly right past my stop at 42nd Street, and didn’t let anyone out until 50th Street. By the time I got out of the station it was nearly one, and I was a full five blocks from the Majestic. I had to be there by 1:05 if I wanted to work that day. With only five minutes to spare, I sprinted down 8th Avenue, dodging tourists and walking in the street to get ahead. I made it to the stage door gate with two minutes left.

I normally went into the theater through the front, but there was no time left to run around the block, and I was far closer to the stage door. Unfortunately for me, Le Sot was on duty, and he refused to buzz me in. I knew he could see me on the security camera, since I was standing right under it, but he completely ignored me, even though I frantically rang the bell several times. The alley was the gateway to three different venues’ stage doors, and they all had the same camera feed, so eventually a doorman at one of the other theaters took pity on me and buzzed me through. I dashed into the Majestic with only a minute to spare.

“Can I help you?” Le Sot stood in the corridor with a sneer on his face. He was blocking my path to the front of the house. I’d been a regular staff member at
Phantom
for five years by that point, he’d seen me on numerous occasions when he had walked through the theater, and he knew damn well who I was. He was just going out of his way to be a complete and utter jackass. I didn’t even try to be polite; I snapped, “Yeah, I work here,” and made a break for the passdoor. The fact that Le Sot knew exactly who I was, and that I had a right to be there, was evidenced when he didn’t send security after me. I reported to the chief at 1:05 exactly, and luckily, I was allowed to work.

I complained about the incident to the house manager later in the day, and I insisted that it needed to be pursued. Le Sot’s pettiness, snobbery and prejudice against the front of house staff had nearly cost me a performance’s pay.

I don’t know if Le Sot is still at
Phantom,
and frankly, I don’t care. I’m sure that wherever he is, the snarl on his face is still there, and he’s still looking down on others to make himself feel better.

Unfortunately, Le Sot wasn’t the only nasty person at the Majestic. There were a few performers who made it clear that they couldn’t stand us. Once when I was sitting in the inner lobby between shows, I overheard two of the supporting actresses as they were walking by. They were talking about places to hold a gathering. One of them, who played Madam Giry, commented, “We could do it downstairs, but the
ushers
are there.” Her tone of voice left no doubt as to her opinion of the ushers, and it wasn’t positive. On another day, I was nearly bowled over by a chorus actress who was, for some reason, running through the orchestra section to get backstage. There was no “Excuse me;” there was no “Hey, I’m sorry I just plowed right into you.” I was just an usher; I didn’t count.

Toward the end of my run at
Phantom,
the negativity did override the happy moments. I detested the show, I disliked a fair number of my colleagues, and I hated being there. When I had to sit “inside” — i.e., remain inside the auditorium to watch for problems and guide patrons during the performance — I zoned out so I didn’t have to focus on anything happening onstage. I waited outside the theater until 6:59 so I didn’t spend even an extra minute there. I refused to work late on nights when they needed extra hands, even though there was double pay involved. I declined to be included in the group photos for
The Playbill Broadway Yearbook.
Simply put, I was done.

I referred to
Phantom
as “Omega” when I talked about it with friends. The code name was prophetic: as Omega was the last letter in the Greek alphabet, so would
Phantom
be my last Broadway show. And I was completely and totally fine with that.

Some people see the proverbial writing on the wall; I just saw myself in the mirror in vibrant color. About six years after I began ushering I started noticing changes in my patterns of dress. When I wasn’t working I wore a lot of color. In fact, I didn’t want to wear any black shirts or dresses on my days off at all. I was seeking out rainbow tie-dye and neon green. I wanted extreme brightness.

Two or three years into my time at
Phantom,
I also started withdrawing from ushering and the theatrical world. I no longer accepted invitations to see Broadway shows with friends, even when the tickets were free. I followed the lead of many of my colleagues and called out for two shows every single week.

Sometimes I had things to do. I was living more in the world and less in the theater; I was going to events all over the city. I went on a tour of the abandoned Atlantic Avenue Tunnel and explored the boarded-up parts of Governor’s Island; I screamed at rock concerts and minor league Cyclones baseball games out in Brooklyn; I hung out with friends more often. I carried a banner and marched in the Coney Island Mermaid Parade; I held a huge puppet and marched up Sixth Avenue in the Village Halloween Parade. I even went back to working as an extra in films and played everything from a taxidermy customer to an Eastern European peasant.

My health, which had been extremely poor in the early 2000s, began to slowly improve. I didn’t need a doctor to tell me; I could see it in the mirror. For about four years, my face had been so bloated and distorted that I hadn’t even recognized myself; now the real me seemed to be making a return appearance. Nobody had yet gotten to the heart of the chronic condition I had, which flared up every so often, but being away from Broadway seemed to be the best medicine.

My personal Renaissance extended to my writing, which similarly had been in a holding pattern for several years. At seventeen I’d interviewed famous authors and politicians; at nineteen I’d been bold enough to write a book for
UNICEF
and had published articles in two countries; but by twenty-four, without any interference from anyone else, I’d completely lost my nerve and my confidence. I never stopped writing, but I stopped submitting it for publication. I wrote complete novels for National Novel Writing Month, known as NaNoWriMo online, saved them to my hard drive, and forgot about them.

As I emerged from my mental and physical chrysalis and pulled away from Broadway, my writing mojo returned. I started slowly, submitting pieces to newspapers and magazines here and there. In 2009 I placed an essay in
She’s Shameless,
a Canadian book that would go on to be a featured selection in the Toronto Public Library’s Word Out teen reading program. I followed that up with an acceptance to
Chicken Soup for the Soul: What I Learned from the Cat.
I was quoted in an edition of Lonely Planet’s guidebook for the Languedoc-Roussillon region of France and contributed a painting to a fan book on The Cure. I was back.

I didn’t tell my colleagues about my writing or any of my other activities outside of work, for the most part. The malicious sorts at
Phantom
were stuck on the idea that I was a loser with no life outside the theater, and far be it from me to deprive them of their delusions. They’d actually mocked me when they saw me come to the theater in a volunteer shirt one day. I’d spent the morning working at an event in support of the blind, and apparently that was somehow objectionable to them. I did bring copies of the
Shameless
and
Chicken Soup for the Soul
books to work and clandestinely showed them to a few supportive co-workers, though, and I was touched when they were proud and happy for me.

The more I lived, the more I understood that I didn’t want the theater to be the focal point of my world anymore. I was tired of being treated horribly by patrons every day. I was weary of watching people emote onstage. I decided that I would much rather see things being accomplished in real life.

I was beginning to view things at
Phantom
far more clearly; to recognize and eschew the backbiting. The constant chatter on the grapevine, which had always been so entertaining, took on a sinister timbre. I limited my interactions with the more vicious gossips, and I became doubly vigilant about keeping my personal business to myself. The Broadway colleagues who had friended me on Facebook, for instance, were filtered out of almost all of my posts and photos about my activities outside of work.

An astrologer might have noted that I had approached Saturn Return, the period in one’s late twenties when one’s perspective and, often life, change. My mother would have simply said that I finally woke up, damn it. Whatever the reason for my sea change, the results were good. Even if I wasn’t aware of it at first, my orbit was slowly but steadily shifting away from Broadway. Soon it would leave the theatrical galaxy altogether.