Hello. Do you have your ticket?

Is it for today's performance?
Is it facing right side up so I can see it?
Will you kindly stop walking for a moment so I can scan it with this blasted machine that probably won't work anyway?
Thank you, and welcome to the show.

I am an usher, which means that i tread the line where art and customer service meet. Sometimes that line is a strange place to be, and that's where this blog comes in. I plan to use this as a place to tell you all the tales that happen between the point where you enter the front door (fyi: thats the address written right on your ticket) and the point where your ass hits that sweetly padded velvet cushion at G145...and also, what goes on during the intermission, post show, when your cell phone goes off....you get the point.
I'm also planning to occasionally review shows, both taking place in my own theatre, and other shows I happen to find a chance to catch, given my schedule. I figure my credentials can't possibly be worse than some of the people out there doing theatre reviews professionally--I have a post secondary education in theatre, studied dramatic literature, and have performed all across North America (of course, not in anything you would have seen). I've worked as front of house staff in multiple theatres in Toronto and NYC, and I've seen an awful lot of plays, good and bad. If a show has an extended run in my theatre, I may do a second review after a month, and let you know how it's holding up to the test of seeing it 25 or 30 times in a row--you'd be surprised how your opinion can change over time, and some of the more subtle things you spot after multiple viewings. Conversely, you'd also be amazed that ushers don't throw themselves over the balconies in protest more often.

You can call me Usher X. I can't tell you specifically what theatre I work in (because, well, I do want to keep my job...that should also explain the moniker), but it's a large, well known Toronto theatre, so if you follow me for more than three posts, you'll probably be able to make a pretty solid guess. I don't mean to offend anyone, so I hope everyone out there can take this blog in the manner it's meant: good humour, with an occasional side of good old fashioned bitching about "you'll never guess what some idiot did today"...because as in any line of work, you run into some real nutjobs now and then.

By the way, did I actually mention that I really do love my job? Because I do. I am the luckiest person on earth because I get paid every night to watch a show and be nice to people. And sometimes, i even get to tell them where to go.
Hell, most of the time, they ask me to!