New York Stagehand Glossary

brick in the wall: to ignore existence of another person in the theater. When I worked at "Cats" on Broadway in the 1990s, there w...

Producer Pep Talk --when box office numbers start dropping, the producers will sometimes make a misguided move of calling a company meeting ...

piss line --hose running from fly floor to the theater alley (holdover from heavy drinking days). I think there is a piss line in the Broadh...

Wave the flag --making a presence on deck. Particularly for prop people, going onstage during a load in, to sweep and make your presence kno...

shape up, shaping, shape the hall --look for work (longshoreman’s term, lit. showing up to show you are in shape). Before most last-minute...

out-of-town tryout --out-of-town stop, opportunity to fix the show. It was more common twenty or thirty years ago, but shows would do one or...

"Don't Get a Sunburn" --Like the rest of the nation, stagehands are drinking much less than they used to, but there is still a...