Reply To: Treading the boards.

One emotion shared by all the cast on the shows down the years was mild panic at being so very close to the front row of the audience; if standing downstage at the apron the poor saps were less than six feet from the patrons occupying Row A. The very close proximity meant there was nowhere to hide if lines were forgotten, and the costumes and set also had to be produced to a very high quality.
We had problems, too, if a following scene was being set behind the midcloth while the current one was running. The stage shared with the auditorium a very sharp and clear accoustic – good for actors’ voice projection but worrying for any (sometimes) leaden-footed stage crew pussyfooting their way across a dimly-lit upstage area especially if heavy furniture had to be shifted on or off. Not only would it be rather embarrassing for the audience to have heard anguished whispers emenating from seemingly nowhere, but of course such “noises off” could be so distracting for the actors downstage.
(These grandiloquent stage terms make the theatre sound much larger than it in fact was: there will soon be a separate section in this website detailing the, er, bijou area within which such memorable magic as Jackie refers to above was created. As they say, “you really had to be there…”)