A theater party can of course be of any size, but six or eight is the usual number, and the invitations are telephoned: "Will Mr. and Mrs. Lovejoy dine with Mr. and Mrs. Norman at seven-thirty on Tuesday and go to the play?"
Or "Will Mr. and Mrs. Oldname dine with Mr. Clubwin Doe on Saturday at the Toit d'Or and go to the play?"
When Mr. and Mrs. Oldname "accept with pleasure" a second message is given: "Dinner will be at 7.30."
Mrs. Norman's guests go to her house. Mr. Doe's guests meet him in the foyer of the Toit d'Or. But the guests at both dinners are taken to the theater by their host. If a dinner is given by a hostess who has no car of her own, a guest will sometimes ask: "Don't you want me to have the car come back for us?" The hostess can either say to an intimate friend "Why, yes, thank you very much," or to a more formal acquaintance, "No, thank you just the same—I have ordered taxis." Or she can accept. There is no rule beyond her own feelings in the matter.
Mr. Doe takes his guests to the theater in taxis. The Normans, if only the Lovejoys are dining with them, go in Mrs. Norman's little town car, but if there are to be six or eight, the ladies go in her car and the gentlemen follow in a taxi. (Unless Mrs. Worldly or Mrs. Gilding are in the party and order their cars back.)
Tickets Bought In Advance
Before inviting anyone to go to a particular play, a hostess must be sure that good tickets are to be had. She should also try to get seats for a play that is new; since it is dull to take people to something they have already seen. This is not difficult in cities where new plays come to town every week, but in New York, where the same ones run for a year or more, it is often a choice between an old good one or a new one that is poor. If intimate friends are coming, a hostess usually asks them what they want to see and tries to get tickets accordingly.
It is really unnecessary to add that one must never ask people to go to a place of public amusement and then stand in line to get seats at the time of the performance.
Going Down The Aisle Of A Theater
The host, or whichever gentleman has the tickets, (if there is no host, the hostess usually hands them to one of the, gentlemen before leaving her house), goes down the aisle first and gives the checks to the usher, and the others follow in the order in which they are to sit and which the hostess must direct. It is necessary that each knows who follows whom, particularly if a theater party arrives after the curtain has gone up. If the hostess "forgets," the guests always ask before trooping down the aisle "How do you want us to sit?" For nothing is more awkward and stupid than to block the aisle at the row where their seats are, while their hostess "sorts them"; and worse yet, in her effort to be polite, sends the ladies to their seats first and then lets the gentlemen stumble across them to their own places. Going down the aisle is not a question of precedence, but a question of seating. The one who is to sit eighth from the aisle, whether a lady or a gentleman, goes first, then the seventh, then the sixth, and if the gentleman with the checks is fifth, he goes in his turn and the fourth follows him.