I have been seeing Broadway shows since I was eight years old. When I got older, I started wanting to meet the actors after the show. This is called "stage dooring." It is a fan-created term, but this is where I have met a crazy amount of actors and friends. There have been some insane stage door situations I have witnessed and then others that were so organized that it made me think that there has to be a safe and efficient way for this all to get done.
The one stage door experience that changed the way I looked at the stage door experience is when I saw "First Date" starring Krysta Rodriguez and Zachary Levi. I saw it in previews, as it was a new musical, but I liked the actors (and I go see everything anyway), so I went to a preview.
The show was hysterical, the cast was phenomenal, and now we are exiting the theater and lined up at the front of the barricades ready for the actors to come out. After waiting about a half hour, Levi walks out and starts signing. He is making sure that every playbill he is signing is one for his show and no one else. People ask for pictures and he says, "I will take pictures with everyone in just a moment." So, we (meaning my best friend Brian and I) waited to take pictures and what happened next was unbelievable. They took the barricades away and then Levi took pictures with every single person that had a "First Date" playbill in hand. No pushing, no yelling, totally safe and efficient. Exactly how a stage door should be.
Every other stage door I experienced after this could not compare. There was so much pushing and people in the back weren't getting everything they wanted signed because people in the front were purposely not letting them get their playbills signed. That was until I saw "She Loves Me," once again starring Levi. This made me get so excited for stage door because I knew how Zac ran things. This time, it was exactly the same, except he added music (for those wondering, Levi has Taylor Swift on his iPod). This made me think, "Why doesn't every show do something like this? Let everyone sign and then go back to take pictures with everyone?" It is so much more efficient and much more safer than everyone pushing just to get a picture or get their playbills passed up.
With this system, the actors are guaranteeing that they will get to them, it will take them a bit, but they are promising that everyone will have a chance and that there is no need to push. I commend Levi for taking this initiative to make the stage door experience fun and safe for all patrons and all actors. This is definitely something every theatre should look into doing with their stage doors.
