They might sound like something unpleasant to modern-day ears, but voms have actually been part of the theatre for thousands of years.

“Vom” is short for vomitorium, which comes from the Latin verb vomo/vomitus, meaning “to vomit or spew forth.” But again, not in the way we may think about vomiting these days!

A vomitorium is a corridor built beneath or behind the seats of a coliseum, stadium, theatre, arena, or other large building. It’s designed to facilitate the movement of large numbers of people, which means it actually “vomits” or “spews” people out of the building at the end of an event. The vomitoria in the Colosseum in Rome were said to be so well designed that its 50,000 seats could be filled and emptied in 15 minutes.

There is a modern-day misconception that the ancient Romans used these corridors—the voms—as a place to vomit the contents of their stomachs after large meals to make room for more indulgences. But although the Romans probably vomited at times, they did not, as far as we know, use the vomitoria to do so!

The voms in theatres are also used as pathways for actors to enter and exit the stage. Some contemporary theatres that have voms are the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis, and the Cockpit Theatre in London. The Circle in the Square Theatre in New York is the only Broadway theatre with a vomitorium.

–Kim Midkiff

This video was made by our friends in the Department of Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism at Yale School of Drama.

Here’s the creative team:

Written by the Dramaturgy Class of 2015
Directed by Catherine Sheehy and Rachel Carpman
Shot by David Kane
Starring: Samantha Lazar, Helen Jaksch, Kelly Kerwin, Stephanie Rolland, Hugh Farrell, and members of the YSD community

Yale School of Drama and Yale Repertory Theatre train and advance leaders to raise the standards of global professional practice in every theatrical discipline. Students in School of Drama’s Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism department receive intensive training to prepare for careers in three areas: to work in theaters as dramaturgs, artistic producers, literary managers, and in related positions; to work in theater publishing as critics and editors as well as in other capacities; to teach theater as practitioners, critics, and scholars.

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Theatre lingo can sometimes be a bit obscure and even misleading. Cheating out? Charm song? Peas and carrots?!

And then a phrase comes along that makes perfect sense. “Kick your face,” for example.

The only thing you need to know is that it refers to kicking one’s own face, and it quickly becomes clear that this phrase belongs to the dancers. (It would be ill-advised for your typical stagehand to try this.) Basically, it means having a lower half sufficiently limber to … well, to kick yourself in the face. Or at least have the option of doing so: When done right, the move typically involves the toes cresting a few inches above the top of the head.

You know how Rockettes-type kick lines invariably trigger an ovation by starting with low kicks and suddenly ratcheting up to chest-high level? Well, “kick your face” goes even higher than that, which is part of why choreographers love to use it. And given how daunting dance lingo can be to the outsider – which position is third position, again? – a phrase like “kick your face” leaves very little to the imagination.

~ Eric Grode

This video is a collaboration between TDF and our friends at Chicago the Musical on Broadway.

Here’s the creative team:

Writer/director: Mark Blankenship, TDF’s online content editor

Cinematographer/editor: Nicholas Guldner

Starring:
Cristy Candler and Michael Cusumano
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A thrust stage is a performance space in which the stage breaks through and extends well past the proscenium arch. It reaches out into the auditorium, so that it is surrounded on three sides by the audience. This makes a dynamic performance space that creates exciting visual opportunities. The stage is flexible: the length, size, and shape of the thrust can be altered to suit the needs of each production.

The thrust stage configuration is thousands of years old and is the oldest known type of fixed staging. The ancient Greek amphitheaters had a thrust configuration. It was also was the type of stage at the old Globe Theatre in London where many of Shakespeare’s works were performed in Elizabethan times. And we are still using the thrust stage in the 21st Century because of the theatrical energy and tension it creates with the actors and audience in close proximity to each other.

For actors, standing on a thrust stage and looking out into the audience conjures a sense of what it might have been like for ancient Greek actors playing to a hillside full of spectators. To perform effectively, actors must remain aware of the audience on either side or even behind them at all times, adjusting their positions and voices to be sure everyone is included.

Audience members are never far from the action on a thrust stage, even when seated in the upper balcony, which creates a special intimacy between the actors and audience. And while the stage can hold whole armies or a large chorus, it also allows a solo performer to command the attention of everyone in the auditorium at once.

Depending on where they’re sitting, audience members get their own unique perspective of a show. Because the stage is surrounded by the audience on three sides, audience members can see each other while watching the action on stage. This creates an interesting experience for spectators, seeing the reactions of the people on the other side of the stage and knowing they are seeing the show from the opposite viewpoint. Because of these different perspectives, the points on stage where there is the most focus may change, and there could be alternate interpretations of certain actions. Since there are many different sight lines, the production director and designers want to make sure the audience will see and understand everything that is happening on stage. During the rehearsal process, the director may view the show from all the various audience sections of the theatre to see how the play reads from different seats and to make sure the story is told clearly to each audience member.

— Carla Steen

This video was made by the creative team at the Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

The GUTHRIE THEATER was founded by Sir Tyrone Guthrie in 1963 and is an American center for theater performance, production, education and professional training. The Tony Award-winning Guthrie Theater is dedicated to producing the great works of dramatic literature, developing the work of contemporary playwrights and cultivating the next generation of theater artists. With annual attendance of nearly 500,000 people, the Guthrie Theater presents a mix of classic plays and contemporary work on its three stages. Under the artistic leadership of Joe Dowling since 1995, the Guthrie continues to set a national standard for excellence in theatrical production and performance. In 2006, the Guthrie opened its new home on the banks of the Mississippi River in Minneapolis. Designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Jean Nouvel, the Guthrie Theater houses three state-of-the-art stages, production facilities, classrooms and dramatic public lobbies.

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Now that Broadway curtains typically go up a half hour earlier than they used to, the term “11 o’clock number” has become something of a misnomer. By the time 11 p.m. rolls around these days, the pit musicians are usually packing up their instruments instead of pumping out a go-for-broke penultimate song.

But what role does the 11 o’clock number play? It’s usually (but not always) the second-to-last song. It usually (but not always) presents some sort of emotional shift or revelation within the main character. Perhaps it’s best to think of it this way: Just as a song in a musical typically represents the culmination of that scene’s emotional content, the 11 o’clock number represents the culmination of all the scenes leading up to it. In other words, it’s kind of a big deal, and it generally falls in one of three categories:

• The soul-barer. “Rose’s Turn” in Gypsy is perhaps the best example of this version, in which the lead character gives cathartic voice to a lifetime’s worth — or at least a show’s worth — of ambivalence or anger or anything else. Runners-up include “This Nearly Was Mine” in South Pacific, “Send in the Clowns” in A Little Night Music and “Lot’s Wife” in Caroline, or Change.
• The group toe-tapper. This is more commonly found in older musicals, where the finale would often reprise earlier melodies in the show; therefore, this number tended to represent the composer’s last chance to implant a toe-tapping number in the audience members’ brains. Frank Loesser had a particular penchant for these such as “Brotherhood of Man” in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying and “Sit Down, You’re Rocking the Boat” in Guys and Dolls.
• The solo toe-tapper. This style has fallen out of favor but was at its peak when stars of Broadway musicals had the vaudevillian panache as well as the marquee appeal to require such a song. Had “Rose’s Turn” been a little more straightforward, it might easily have fallen into this category. Instead, the best examples might be Carol Channing’s brassy send-off “So Long, Dearie” in Hello, Dolly!, Judy Holliday’s even brassier “I’m Going Back” in Bells Are Ringing and, more recently, “The American Dream” from Miss Saigon.

If you have a hard time choosing just one of these, may we suggest Follies. Fittingly for such a famously lavish show, it features a climactic “Loveland” sequence with all three styles represented, plus a second solo toe-tapper as a bonus. By the time those four are over, 11 o’clock may seem like a long time ago.

–Eric Grode

This video is a collaboration between TDF and our friends at Avenue Q.

Here’s the creative team:

Writer/director: Mark Blankenship, TDF’s online content editor

Cinematographer/editor: Nicholas Guldner

Starring:
Veronica J. Kuehn and Lucy
Nick Kohn as himself
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Currently playing at New World Stages and now in its 10th year in NYC, Avenue Q is the hilarious and enormously popular Tony Award-winning musical about a group of 20-somethings—people and puppets alike—who move to the New York with big dreams and tiny bank accounts. Together they live as neighbors on a street in an outer borough, where they all try to find their purpose in life.

You can keep your Tony Awards and your Pulitzer Prizes. If you ask any Broadway chorus member what the highest honor is, it’s the Gypsy Robe.

Built on a tradition dating back to 1950, the Gypsy Robe is a garment bestowed on the opening night of a Broadway musical to the chorus member (or gypsy) with the largest number of Broadway credits to their name. When the next show with a Broadway chorus opens, the robe is passed on to another veteran trouper, but not before everyone in the previous cast has signed it and stitched on a memento—cheerleader pom-poms for Bring It On, for example, or the head of Trekkie Monster for Avenue Q. Once a robe has been filled to capacity with such souvenirs, it is retired (a couple are in the Smithsonian) and a new one takes its place.

At the 2005 opening of In My Life, 12-year-old Brynn Williams became the youngest-ever recipient of the Gypsy Robe. Multiple honorees over the years have included Chita Rivera, who is often nicknamed the Queen of the Gypsies, and Donna McKechnie, who starred in that prototypical musical about Broadway gypsies, A Chorus Line.

What has been established as a hallowed ritual, however, began as a joke. In 1950, 18-year-old Florence Baum (who would later become Mel Brooks’ first wife) was a chorus girl in the box-office smash Gentlemen Prefer Blondes when fellow cast member and future choreographer Bill Bradley persuaded her to give him a campy, white satin negligee that she wore backstage. Bradley passed the dressing gown off to another chorus boy as a gag gift for the opening night of Ethel Merman’s Call Me Madam. After that show turned out to be a success, Bradley’s friend pinned a rose from Merman’s costume onto the gown and forwarded it to yet another colleague, who was opening the next month in the original production of Guys and Dolls. That, of course, became a monster hit as well, and within a few years, a good-luck ritual had been born.

The tradition continued through many seasons and many different robes until it began to lose steam and face extinction. Then, in 1982, a theatre fan named Gloria Rosenthal heard about it for the first time, published an article in Playbill, and persuaded Actors’ Equity to officially oversee the event. Since then, the Gypsy Robe has become a permanent New York institution.

–Andy Buck

This video is a collaboration between TDF and Actors’ Equity Association.

Here’s the creative team:

Writer/director: Mark Blankenship, TDF’s online content editor

Cinematographer/editor: Nicholas Guldner

Starring: Adrian Bailey, Lisa Gajda, David Westphal
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Actors’ Equity Association (“AEA” or “Equity”), founded in 1913, is the labor union that represents more than 49,000 Actors and Stage Managers in the United States. Equity seeks to advance, promote and foster the art of live theatre as an essential component of our society. Equity negotiates wages and working conditions and provides a wide range of benefits, including health and pension plans, for its members. Actors’ Equity is a member of the AFL-CIO, and is affiliated with FIA, an international organization of performing arts unions.