Right this way, please…Theatre Ushers

Movie theatres offered attendees to be treated like royalty while they visited for an afternoon or evening of entertainment. They entered lavishly decorated buildings to take in a performance and were greeted by a staff of well dressed young men and women who directed them towards the auditorium and chauffeured them to their seats. The staff filled a variety of roles and helped the patron’s visit to the theatre be as enjoyable as possible. A closer look shows that for the varied jobs there were subtle differences in uniforms for the staff based on what jobs they would be performing. See if you can spot the differences in the uniform of the Usher and Chief Usher in the photo above.

Pages, box office workers, ticket takers, male and female ushers, doormen, and guides were some of the jobs that helped guide people through the front door all the way into their seats for the show, and then back out again. Uniforms could be ordered with any number of slight variation to give a visual cue to the the different task a given employee may be doing. Below is an example of a theatre uniform order form.

Finally ushers had their own set of signals to communicate with each other. Keep in mind the capacity for larger theatres was into the thousands, and directing patrons in and out of auditoriums every couple of hours could be a daunting task.

If you find this story fascinating, we have a treasure trove of information about the history of your favorite theatres.  Sign up for an account on historictheatres.org and enter through the STAGE DOOR!