Cast of volunteers keeps curtains rising

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"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."