Cast of volunteers keeps curtains rising

“The thing you have to watch for tonight is the late seating,” Tyler Penfield, the house manager for a Friday performance of “Richard III” at the Shakespeare Theatre Company downtown, tells his volunteer ushers about an hour before the curtain.

“Normally, the first late-seating break is a lot sooner,” he says. “But this time, it’s about 50 minutes in, so you’ll have to be ready when it happens.”

Mr. Penfield hands out assignments — who goes to the first ticket-taking station, who’s doing indoor tickets, who’s handling the refreshment stand, the gift stand, the coat check. His 14 ushers — some in their 60s or older, some young, some veterans and some newcomers — take in his instructions.

To theater professionals, volunteers such as these are absolutely crucial to a house’s smooth functioning.

“Ushers are usually the first person a theatergoer sees. They’re very important. Except for the performers, the ushers are the face of a theater,” says Lynn Coughlin, theater services manager for the Shakespeare Theatre.

“Plus,” she says, “it would be an enormous expense to hire professionals to perform these tasks.”

Mustering the troops

Welcome to the world of Washington’s volunteer ushers, who muster almost every night and on matinee afternoons all over the area in scenes very like that played out at the Shakespeare Theatre.

On that same Friday night, just down the street, the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company prepares its ushers for the night’s performance of “Vigils.” In Southwest at Arena Stage, a crew of ushers gathers for a performance of August Wilson’s “Gem of the Ocean.” Volunteer ushers in Shirlington got ready to show off Signature Theatre’s new building and lead patrons to their seats for a performance of “Into the Woods.”

And at the Studio Theatre in the busy 14th and P Street area, Solomon HaileSelassie, director of Studio’s Audience Services, instructs his eight ushers just before a performance of Lypsinka’s “The Passion of the Crawford.”

“I don’t think you can get to do productions without volunteer ushers,” Mr. HaileSelassie says. “The ushers are a part of the whole process. They’re the ones that make sure the audience experience is a good one.”

Free work, free shows

While the Kennedy Center, the National Theatre and the Warner Theatre use paid professional ushers, almost all other performing venues — especially Washington theater companies of all sizes — use volunteers to perform tasks from taking tickets to manning gift shops, coat checks and concession stands.

These vital hands come from all walks of life and can range in age from teenagers to octogenarians. Frequently they are retired people or students, couples, theater buffs with day jobs, young professionals, men and women.

“We try to have a mix of people,” the Shakespeare Theatre’s Ms. Coughlin says, “first-timers or newbies, veterans, young and old.”

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