Tickets please!

Today I voluntereed as an usher at New Conservatory Theatre, taking tickets for The Big Voice: God or Merman? It’s a fantastic show, and has been extended a week until August 26th. Don’t blame me if you miss it. You’ve been warned. My birthday is this week and I’m going to treat myself by seeing it again (as a paying customer this time). Last night I ushered for Greater Tuna. When I arrived at the theatre dressed head to toe in black, I sat next to another guy dressed all in black who had just finished his dinner. I asked if he was ushering too. He said no, he was performing. It turned out he was Steve Schalchlin, co-creator and star of The Big Voice. He couldn’t have been sweeter to the clueless usher, and how grateful I am that he spends his time not ushering, but otherwise engaged.
 
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Coma Pastiche: Last time I ushered, it was for Legends at NCTC.I wore a tasteful feather boa because it was about show business divas.
Dharma Lama Ding Dong: No. You wore it because you seek out the flimsiest excuse to swaddle your neck in chicken feathers.
Coma: Well, this time it wasn’t such a flimsy excuse. It felt… appropriate.
Dharma: Uh huh.
Chesty La Boom: You were the freaking usher, Coma, not one of the actors.
Coma: It added a little festivity to the proceedings. A lot of people commented on it. I got to interact with them. Isn’t that what theater’s supposed to do? Connect with people?
Chesty: The USHER, Coma! You were the USHER!
Dharma: And we know you loathe being noticed like that!
Coma: This one teenager was there with his parents and came back after they were seated and told me how cool the boa was! I felt twenty years younger!
Chesty: Down to the age of his parents’.
Coma: I’m sure that boy has bolts of shimmery spandex in his future. But then there was this other guy. And he told me, like, several times, “It’s not Halloween.” I just grinned through gritted teeth and shredded that ticket. “Enjoy the show.”
Dharma: I love tickets you can tear. Love that ritual. It feels like it demarcates the worlds. People come from one world. Then they present you with this talisman, this ticket (and don’t they feel charged?)
Chesty: They ARE charged by most people.
Dharma: And they give it to you, and you rip it in two and you keep part and give them back only part of it. You ritualize that it’s time for them to leave part of their lives behind as they enter the temple, moving between worlds.
Coma: In The Big Voice Jim Brochu talks about the first time he was in a Broadway theater, and he said it felt like being in a church, but with energy.
Dharma: It IS like entering a church. A sacred space.
Coma: If you’re a priest, you’re supposed to give out the sacrament, not rip off half of it.
Dharma: You give out a program. Anyway… It’s a ritual I never get tired of.
Coma: Now they use scanners at the big houses.
Dharma: Even there. It’s like you’re in a Star Trek transporter that’s about to take you to a new dimension.
Chesty: Right. Transported to the world of… Lestat. Better be a Hummer transporting you ’cause you’re heading off a cliff.
Dharma: I remember Justin Bond as an usher. It was at Theatre Rhino back in the day. A shy little thing who could barely get out the pre-show shpiel. Cute as a button, though.
Chesty: Now she’s back in town at ACT as Kiki in the Kiki and Herb show.
Coma: Like I always say, be nice to your usher, ’cause one day she may be your landlady.

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