WHEN my pupils become professional dancers and "sign up" for their first stage engagement they will wish not to be or appear ignorant of the marvelous mechanism that is the modern theatrical stage. Not that they will learn it all from any book, but my knowledge of things back stage will be of help, and I have jotted down here some of them for that purpose. The rest of it the new entrant upon the real stage will absorb in time, but with the help of my condensed explanation herein no one who reads need appear lost or totally bewildered in the new environment back of the curtain line.
Let me tell you some of the important things that every pupil of mine who contemplates a[308] professional career should know about the theatre, the building itself and the stage upon which you expect to present your offerings to the public.
In the first place, the theatre building is divided into two parts, the auditorium and the stage. The dividing line is known as the curtain line. In stage parlance the auditorium side of the dividing line is the "front of the house," or "out front," and the stage side is always "back stage."
The proscenium arch of the stage makes the frame for the pictures on the stage. "The opening" means to the professional the width across stage at the proscenium arch, and varies according to the size of the auditorium and the line of sight of the auditors. It may be thirty feet, forty,[309] or even more, as is the case in the New York Hippodrome and other large city theatres. The height is sometimes the same as the width, or slightly less, the complete frame of the arch being usually of an oblong shape, possibly thirty-five feet wide and twenty-five feet high.
The fire laws require a fireproof curtain, which is on the outer or audience side of the two or more curtains that hang on the stage side of the proscenium arch. Next to this asbestos affair is the "act curtain," that raises and lowers, and is usually painted on fire-proofed or heavy duck canvas. There may be used instead or in addition to the act curtain, what is known as a tableau curtain, that works in a traveler above, which can be drawn straight off stage, both ways, parting in the middle, or be pulled to a drape at each side. This is always made of material and sometimes painted in aniline dye; if painted in water color or oil it would crack.
Proscenium Arch, the Frame of the Stage Pictures
Diagram of a Modern Theatre
There is never any curtain in front of "the arch" or proscenium. The footlights and the apron are in front of the fireproof curtain. The apron may be deep or shallow, and at its front edge is the footlight trough and a masking piece, fireproof always, to shield the eyes of the audience and reflect the footlights onto the stage. The footlights follow the front curvature of the apron, when it is curved, as is usually the case, although many of the modern stages have no apron at all, the footlights running in a straight line across, sometimes within a foot of the fire curtain.