Front of House: Observations from a Decade on the Aisle (8 page)

If you want to discern the true character of a Broadway production, there’s really only one question you need to ask: were the ushers invited to the opening night party? The shows that extend invitations to the ushers, merchandising crew and bartenders are generally the better ones. Why? They treat the front of house folks as valued members of the team.

The large Cameron Mackintosh musicals,
Phantom, Cats and Les Mis,
are excellent about this, for what it’s worth. Everyone I knew who worked at
Cats
or Les Misérables
told me that they were invited to the closing parties for their shows. In the six years I worked as a regular at
Phantom,
the ushers were never excluded from a single celebration. In 2006, when
Phantom
broke
Cats’
record to become the longest running show on Broadway, we even received formal, personalized invitations to the black-tie party at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel along with all of the other guests. I still have mine at home.

I went to some other smashing parties in my time at
Phantom.
The most memorable was on one of the top floors of the Dream Hotel, in a magical space with flickering candles and long corridors leading to secret rooms. On other occasions, when there wasn’t a large outside party for one reason or another, the cast and crew all gathered onstage at the Majestic for cake and pizza. Clearing the theater on party nights could be a challenge; the audience would see that there was something fun that was about to happen and they’d try to stay (Nope. Sorry.).

At
Enchanted April
the closing party was held at a wonderful Italian restaurant down the block from the Belasco Theatre, where we all sat at long tables to laugh and eat together. Considering that the show was set mostly in Tuscany, ending the run with some good Italian food was most appropriate. John Leguizamo’s
Sexaholix
gave everyone “backstage pass” laminates for the opening night bash at Ruby Foo’s.
Def Poetry Jam
had a great closing party. Even though we were all sad that the production had met an untimely end, we genuinely enjoyed spending one last evening together.

The shows that exclude the ushers, merchandising staff and bartenders from the opening and closing night parties never inspire the same enthusiasm. When the front of house learns that they’re not invited, the morale instantly plunges.

It’s not about going to a party and getting free food; it’s not about getting into the chic restaurant or nightclub where the event is happening. It’s about knowing the attitude of the production staff toward the employees. When the ushers are included, the message that is conveyed is, “We acknowledge that you work with us, we like you, and we don’t think that you are invisible.” When the front of house staff is excluded, the production and management teams are making it crystal clear that they don’t think that the ushers count. Their contributions don’t matter. They’re just plebeians.

While I would never purport that ushers have anywhere near the same influence on the production as the actors, musicians, stage managers or stagehands, they really do their damndest to ensure that everything out front goes smoothly. That, in turn, means that the actors, musicians, stagehands and stage managers might have an easier time doing their jobs.

At
Kat and the Kings,
a musical from Cape Town, South Africa that played at the Cort Theatre in 1999, there was a definitive disconnect between the wishes of the management office, the house staff and the actors. Several of the younger ushers struck up friendships with members of the cast, most of whom were excited to be in New York. These acquaintanceships and friendships were genuine, and some of us kept in touch even after the show closed. At Christmas, the entire theater came together for a party and a huge Secret Santa. If we were sitting in the audience during the show the performers always acknowledged us when they could; I always looked for my Act I wink from Luqmaan Adams. Staff at the management office and one of the producers, the wonderful Willette Klausner, also became friendly with us. We had a common goal: we were all trying to help this striking little show find its wings and fly.

This was at odds with the philosophy of the company manager, unfortunately. He was a rather nebbish, stoic fellow, and he never said two words to the ushers, unless it was to offer criticism or express his annoyance or contempt toward us. It was clear that he considered the ushers to be completely repulsive.

Kat and the Kings
closed after only four months or so on Broadway. The ushers did not receive invitations to the closing night party. However, a friend in the cast, Alistair Izobell, invited me anyway. Since I’d been asked to attend by a cast member, I walked over to the restaurant with two friends, Gene and Bob. They had attended a lot of performances and they’d also been invited to the party.

Our very best buddy, the company manager, met us at the threshold. He ignored Gene and Bob and addressed me directly. ”I’m sorry, but the ushers were not invited,” he said. I stared at him for a second, hoping that he was joking, but he was dead serious.

”I’m here as a personal guest of Alistair,” I retorted. “Not as an usher.”

”Well,
Alistair…”

“Stop it!” There was another shadow in the doorway, and Willette bustled over to us, cutting off the manager mid-sentence. “They’re invited. She’s been a great supporter of the show.” She turned to me. “Please come in.” Bob, Gene and I awkwardly walked into the room.

“Thank you,” I said. I didn’t even hear the response; Willette had moved off to speak privately with the management troll. She was on my side, and I was grateful.

Alistair popped over to see what had happened, and someone else handed me a plate of pasta. As I tucked into my ziti I looked around the room. What I saw reinforced just how much this particular manager hated the ushers. The merchandising people had been invited, and I spotted at least one of the theater bartenders at the back of the dark room. There were also several superfans. I could have been wrong, but I wagered that none of them had been stopped at the door. If Gene and Bob had showed up without me, they probably would have been admitted without a fuss, too. This guy had actively excluded the ushers while inviting just about everyone else in the entire theater, both front and back of house. I didn’t know what we’d ever done to him, but the grudge was apparently much deeper than I had originally thought.

For the rest of the night I caught the management troll glaring at me off and on, especially when I was chatting with friends from the show. It was kind of sad to think that he had so much hostility invested in someone who really hadn’t wronged him. When I spotted him talking to the house manager, I knew I needed to do something. I didn’t care if he hated me, but I couldn’t have him potentially jeopardizing my future employment.

The house manager stood to one side of the room, nursing a drink. He raised his eyebrows when I approached him.

“Listen, I want you to know that I didn’t crash this party. I really
was
invited by someone in the show, and I didn’t think it would be an issue.” He needed to know that.

He regarded me quietly. “Yes, I know. And I think you all should have been invited, anyway.” Relief flooded through me. With one notable exception, I was among friends.

Do the actors ever screw up? Of course they do. When it happens, it’s often conversation fodder for everyone. It’s not about Schadenfreude as much as it’s about variety. When you’ve seen the same show hundreds of times you tend to become desperate for some deviation from the standard performance. Bloopers are entertainment for all, as long as no one gets hurt or fired.

At
Phantom,
there were several incidents where the actor playing Joseph Buquet didn’t make it onstage in time for his big number, “Magical Lasso.” If you haven’t seen the show, it’s a scene where a grizzled old stagehand, Buquet, scares the young ballerinas of the Opera Populaire by regaling them with horror stories of the “opera ghost” who lives under the theater. When Madame Giry, the ballet mistress, shows up, the girls scurry away. Giry is left onstage with Buquet; she essentially tells him, “Shut up and stop talking about the Phantom or you’re going to be murdered in a horrible fashion, just so you know.” Much more poetically, of course.

The first time I saw this happen, the dancers just looked uncertainly at each other until Meg, the most visible ballerina and supporting character, got up and tried to tell a ghost story. The second time, Meg popped right up and recited all of Buquet’s lines perfectly. In both cases, Giry had to direct her lines to Meg instead of Buquet. It actually fits plausibly into the story: Giry spends a good portion of Act I reprimanding the ballerinas as it is, and Meg is her daughter.

There were so many special effects and props in
Phantom
that it was inevitable that some of them would fail occasionally. The drapes that cover the golden angel and gilded proscenium are pulled away by stagehands dressed in period costumes during the overture at the top of the show. They step into the boxes closest to the stage, yank down the drapes, and step out again. The fabric is rigged to fall away effortlessly if it is tugged the right way, but every now and then, I saw it get stuck. Instead of making his pull and disappearing, the poor stagehand would end up standing there, hauling urgently on the drapes. They always gave way eventually, fortunately.

In the climatic final confrontation of the show, the Phantom ensnares Raoul in the “magical lasso,” a garish red noose that seems to float in the air. I witnessed a few performances where the noose didn’t work properly, so the Phantom just used The Force instead and gestured toward Raoul with deliberate hand movements. Raoul got with the program instantly, obligingly froze in place, and writhed in pain.

At the very end of the show, the Phantom sits down on his elaborate throne and throws a cape over his head. As Meg and several other characters climb down a metal gate to invade his lair, he vanishes. When Meg reaches the throne, she rips away the cape. The Phantom is gone, but he’s left his mask on the seat of the chair.

Sometimes the Phantom’s chair doesn’t work and he can’t go anywhere. Meg is quickly given a heads up so she doesn’t tear the cape away. Instead, she just grabs the mask, if possible; or kneels quietly by the throne. I never saw this myself, but I was told that on at least one occasion when the chair didn’t work, Meg didn’t hear the warning and ripped the cape away anyway. She discovered the Phantom slumped over on his throne, apparently dead.

At
Les Misérables
there were chair malfunctions, too. In one scene early in the show, there’s a confrontation between Inspector Javert and Jean Valjean in a hospital room. Valjean is at the hospital to visit the dying Fantine and reassure her that he will care for her daughter, Cosette. Just after Fantine expires, Javert shows up and attempts to arrest Valjean. The two men end up fighting at Fantine’s bedside. They sing, they stalk each other, and eventually, Valjean picks up a chair, smashes it to pieces, and brandishes a jagged bit of wood at Javert to hold him off.

There was one particular Valjean actor who just wasn’t friends with the breakaway prop chair. The thing seemed to stymie him on a regular basis. He’d pick it up and it wouldn’t break. It broke before he had a chance to smash it. He tapped it lightly on the floor and the entire thing weakly crumbled. The actor playing Javert always pressed his lips together in a fierce scowl, but if you looked closely, you could see that he was trying to avoid laughing. He did his very best to make the audience believe he was very, very intimidated by the pitiful bits of wood that were scattered across the stage. A regular
Les Mis
usher told me that there was even a performance where the wood from the chair hit Fantine as she reposed on her deathbed, and the poor actress had to break character and raise her hands to protect her face. Apparently, malfunctioning prop chairs have the power to resurrect the dead.

Over at
Cats,
most of the errors I witnessed were small. The lights on the Siamese cat costumes in “Growltiger’s Last Stand” didn’t always illuminate; the wings on the beetle outfits in the Gumbie Cat tap dance didn’t always open. Occasionally a performer slipped and fell. There were several flashpots on the stage; during the “Mr. Mistoffelees” number, Mistoffelees pointed at them and they “magically” exploded with sparks and smoke. I was told that when the charges didn’t go off it was sometimes a matter of safety; if the crew felt that one of the performers was too close to the flashpot, they didn’t discharge it.

In
The Life,
a dark musical about prostitutes in 1970/80s Times Square that played at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, Pamela Issacs was supposed to storm offstage during one particularly tense scene. One evening when I was there, the door in the set wouldn’t open for her, so she couldn’t make her exit. She struggled with it for a moment, and then regally stalked around the edge of the set to take her leave, her head held high.

In the musical version of
Jekyll & Hyde
at the Plymouth, the eponymous characters went through several dramatic transformations onstage. The metamorphoses were fueled by injections of Nasty and Nice serums Jekyll had created in his laboratory. During one performance, at a point in the show where Hyde was being especially creepy and scary, the syringe he was about to jam into his arm slipped out of his hand and rolled away. The actor had to crawl around the set to find it, since the scene couldn’t continue without the injection sequence.

This wouldn’t have been particularly noteworthy, if not for the fact that the actor muttered, in his perfectly eerie Hyde voice: “Oops.”