Stage & Performing Arts

How to Spot a Fake Concert or Theater Ticket

Lights down. Curtain up. There is nothing like that buzzy moment before a show, when the lobby is humming and you are already hearing the first notes in your head. Which is why fake tickets feel so cruel. They steal your money and your night out in one swipe. If you are staring at a listing and...

What Is Will Call for Show Tickets?

Lights down. Curtain up. If your ticket confirmation says will call , it simply means your ticket is being held for you at the venue , usually at the box office , under the name used to buy it. Instead of printing a ticket at home or pulling up a QR code at the door, you stop by the will call...

Audio Description at the Theater, Explained

Lights down. Curtain up. If you have ever heard someone quietly narrate what is happening in a film during a school screening, you already have the basic idea. The difference is that audio description is professional: it is written and delivered by trained describers, carefully timed, and played...

What Is a Talkback in Theater?

Lights down. Curtain up. And then sometimes, after the applause settles, the show has one more scene: the conversation. In theater, that post-show chat is called a talkback , and it is one of the best ways to peek behind the curtain without stepping onstage. A talkback is a structured conversation...

What Is an Orchestra Pit?

Lights down. Curtain up. If you’ve ever heard live strings swelling under a big theatre moment and wondered, where are all those musicians? chances are they are in the orchestra pit . It is one of the most important spaces in a performing arts venue and one of the easiest to mix up with audience...

What Is a Dance Captain in Theater?

Lights down. Curtain up. Once a show opens, choreography does not get to live in a rehearsal bubble. It has to survive eight shows a week, new spacing, tired bodies, quick costume changes, and the occasional last-minute replacement. That is where the dance captain comes in. A dance captain is a...

What Is a Staged Reading?

Lights down. Curtain up. If you have ever seen a theater listing that says staged reading , you might wonder whether you are getting a full production or something closer to a rehearsal. The short version: a staged reading is a script-in-hand presentation of a play or musical, performed by actors...

What Is a Sensory-Friendly Performance?

I learned early, watching my relatives build worlds backstage in Chicago, that a “great audience” is not a silent, perfectly still audience. It is an audience that can actually be there . Sensory-friendly performances, sometimes called relaxed performances, are one of the most practical, humane...

What Off-Book Means in Rehearsal

I grew up backstage in Chicago, where the smell of fresh paint and hot lamps was basically a family perfume. The phrase I heard most often right before rehearsal turned serious was not “places” or “quiet, please.” It was “When are we going off-book?” If you are new to rehearsals, “off-book” can...

When Should You Applaud at a Play or Musical?

I grew up in Chicago in a family that treated backstage like a second living room. I learned early that applause is not just noise, it is communication. It tells performers, musicians, stagehands, and everyone in the booth that what they built together is landing in the room. Still, if you have...

What Is a House Seat at a Theater?

I learned the phrase “house seats” the way a lot of theater people do: not from a ticketing FAQ, but from a hushed conversation in a lobby. A friend pointed to a cluster of prime orchestra spots that had stayed mysteriously unsold all week, then filled at curtain with unfamiliar faces who looked...

What Is a Preview Performance?

I still get a little thrill when a program says Preview . It feels like being invited into the workshop, not just the showroom. You are watching a real, ticketed performance with a real audience, but you are also catching the production in that electric in-between state where the storytelling is...

What Is a Sitzprobe?

The first time singers and a full orchestra meet each other in the same room, something shifts. Tempos become real, colors bloom, and the show starts sounding like the show. In musical theater, that moment has a name: the sitzprobe (often pronounced zits-PROH-buh or sits-PROH-buh). A sitzprobe is a...

What Does a Stage Manager Do?

I grew up in Chicago in the sort of family where “backstage” was a normal childhood habitat. While other kids were trading baseball cards, I was learning the sacred geography of a theater: the wings, the booth, the spike marks, the tiny glow of work lights behind a set wall. And no matter what the...

What Is an Encore at a Concert?

I grew up in Chicago with family members who built sets and tuned instruments for a living, so I learned early that live performance has its own secret language. “Encore” is one of those words that sounds glamorous and spontaneous, but it is also a practical part of how concerts are paced,...

What Should You Wear to a Concert?

I grew up in Chicago, where “going to a show” meant two equally serious questions: Who’s headlining, and what’s the wind doing off the lake? Years later, whether I’m wedged into a sweaty club or up in the rafters of an arena, I still dress for the same truth: concerts are participatory theater. You...

What Is a Stage Door?

The first time I stage-doored as a kid in Chicago, I remember the sudden switch in energy: inside the theater, everyone is hushed and reverent, watching a world unfold. Outside, near a plain, hardworking door that looks like it leads to a supply closet, the night turns into something else entirely,...

What Is a Green Room in Theater?

The first time I was allowed into a real green room, I was a kid in Chicago trailing my mom through a regional theater where she was helping paint flats. I remember thinking it would be, well, green. Like a literal room dipped in mint paint. It was not. It was a slightly battered lounge with a sofa...

What Is a Matinee?

I grew up in Chicago backstage, the kind of kid who could tell time by the warm-up scales drifting from the pit and the stage manager’s calls echoing down a hallway. Matinees were their own little universe. The daylight outside still felt like part of the show, and the audience arrived with a...

What Is an Obstructed-View Seat?

I have a small pre-show ritual I never skip: I read the whole playbill, I clock the set designer, and I quietly note the sightlines. That last one is not me being precious. It is survival. Nothing deflates the buzz of a big night out like realizing your bargain ticket comes with a bonus feature: a...