“Wait, Judy!” said Pauline. “I don’t think we should go exploring.”
But Judy didn’t see any reason why she shouldn’t leave her seat if the others saved it for her. She shook the snow from her coat and left it there so people would know the seat was taken.
Most of the folding seats had been removed from the theater to make room for the TV equipment. Those that remained were directly under the balcony. Judy hesitated a moment, looking around. Then she walked down the aisle between the rows of seats until she came to what was called the studio floor. Immediately she recognized the different kinds of cameras and microphones. The big mike boom, mounted on its three-wheeled platform, stood to one side. So did the dolly, its funny little up-in-the-air seat now empty. Judy gazed at it for a moment. Then she turned around. There on the balcony was the glass-enclosed control room with its monitors and flashing lights.
“I learned more than I thought I did on that tour,” she told the others when she returned to her seat. “The control room is just over our heads on what used to be the balcony of the old theater. There’s a movie on this channel now.”
“We’ve been watching it. Probably it’s being shown for the second time in this theatre,” Pauline said. “It’s so ancient I’m sure it must have been one of the pictures shown here before this building was made over into a TV studio.” She pointed. “See it! They have another one of those monitors suspended from a beam just over the middle aisle.”
“That’s wonderful!” exclaimed Judy. “We can watch Irene’s show on TV at the same time we’re seeing it on the stage. Oh, there she is!”
Judy broke off with this exclamation as the people in the surrounding seats began to clap. She joined them, clapping so enthusiastically that her hands smarted. Under the blazing overhead lights, Irene looked lovelier than ever. She had appeared from somewhere behind the star-studded curtain.
“Hi, everybody!” she said brightly when the clapping had subsided. “Welcome to the Golden Girl show. In the half hour before we go on the air there’s time to make you acquainted with some of the people important to the show.”
One by one they were introduced. Irene knew all the technicians and called them by their first names—the manager with his walkie-talkie, the boom man, the camera men and their helpers. One was adjusting the seat on the dolly.
“I’d get dizzy up there,” Judy whispered.