Tag Archives: Theater

High School theater tradition

Informant: “So in high school theater, we had a lot of traditions before a show. We would always start with some kind of focus activity, which was really nice. Then we’d go around and do a compliment circle, where everyone would give a compliment to someone else.

After that, we’d pass around a “squeeze,” and then the last thing we’d do was this kind of chant-and-movement game. One person would stand in the center and start shouting, “We are riding on a pony, we are riding on a pony, we are riding on a pony…”

Then you’d find a partner, and together you’d do the moves: front, front, front, front—pony; side, side, side, side—pony; back, back, back, back—pony; on a big fat pony.

As it went on, more and more people would join in, and you’d keep repeating it until eventually everyone was doing it together in the final round.”

Context: Informant attended high school in Connecticut and was taught and participated in this theater tradition before their shows. Tradition was passed down from past upperclassmen within the high school program. 

Analysis: This tradition happens right before the performance, which allows actors to mark the threshold between their “normal” life and their staged life. The exaggerated movements and chanting suspend normal behavior, allowing participants to enter a different mindset that is more expressive and less self-conscious.

Additionally, traditions like this are usually passed down from older members of the group to newer ones. This gives older students to pass down to younger ones to continue the ritual as kids age out of the program, but ensures something is left behind by them. 

This also marks who is “in” the folk group of this theater department or ot. Generally, theater communities are known for having their own rituals, superstitions, and games. Participating in these traditions signals membership; if you know the chant and movements, you’re “in” the group.

Plonkies

Text: “In High School, I was in drama club. Every time before a show, about 15 minutes before a show, everyone would gather around to hear our director’s speech to send us off. When it got down to 5 minutes, our stage managers – that being our Production Stage Manager and two Assistant Stage Managers would stand up on chairs in the center of the crowd. Their speech is different from the directors’; it was more centered towards hype and getting all the positive energy into your systems. They would start with a drum roll…and as that beat rolled through the crowd, they would spin their arms in circles and YELL, “It’sssssss going! Itsssssss going! ITSSSSSSS PLONKIES!” Everyone would say the Plonkies part with them, and then all hype, we would run off to places, whether we were in the crew or cast. I’m not sure how it originated, but it has been a long-running tradition since I joined my freshman year. Plonkies is pretty much a funny way to say places. It would be said at the beginning of each of the three shows we had over the weekend; the last one was always said cause it meant the last show, but it was fun nonetheless.”

Context: A high school theater tradition that is celebrated by both members of the cast and crew and performed by students. OK was a tech student and saw and participated in this tradition for all four years in high school, for each of the eight shows over that time. There would be two shows every year. It is always performed by the Stage Managers.

Analysis: The mix of the drum roll, the yelling, and everyone joining in creates this shared burst of energy that hypes people up and calms nerves at the same time. There has always been a wide variety of traditions within theaters, most relating to ghosts, but it is interesting to see a different kind, one that includes both the crew and the cast together. Overall, it’s a good example of how inside jokes and traditions can build a sense of community and make stressful moments feel exciting instead of overwhelming. Knowing it has been a tradition passed down for generations of theater students makes the sense of community even stronger; it’s a bond of the present and past students.

Toga & Techie Scream

Text: “At my high school, in drama club, before every show, the tech crew had very special and sacred traditions. Now before every show our crew got together in the hallways behind the audortiam and do a little thing called “toga” or “techie yoga” while the actors were away doing their vocal warmups. It was usally led by the stage managers. It was to loosen up before the shows, we would do all kinds of stretches. Following thw toga, was my favorite part, the techie scream. Now this was to get out all frustration from the heavy work of tech week. The stage manager would lift up their hands and you would scream as loud as you can and get out all frustrations. You would conclude the screaming when the stage managers hands were back down. We would do this before every show for all of the 4 years i’d been there. It was started a long time before I got there and am pretty sure it still occurs today.

Context: AL went to Arlington High School in upstate New York, and their drama club was called Admiral Players – as their mascot was an Admiral. The tech crew would do a yoga routine to stretch out and get loose before everyshow and would also finish with a scream to get out any frustration from the grueling tech week.

Analysis: This tradition shows how the tech crew made their own way to bond and deal with the stress of putting on a show. The techie yoga and the techie scream helped people relax, stretch, and let out frustration from a long tech week. Even though it seems goofy, doing it was something everyone looked forward to. Because it was done every year, it also became a tradition that connected different groups of students over time. It made new students feel included and became bonding with everyone during this tradition. It shows how small rituals like this can make people feel closer and turn a stressful experience into something more fun and memorable.

Pre-Performance Rituals in a Chinese High School Drama Club

“Back in high school, I was in this drama club, and whenever we had anything to do with performing on stage, there were always these rituals before the show. Like, unwritten rules. You couldn’t cut your hair the day before a performance, you couldn’t shave either. And then there were certain colors you weren’t allowed to wear — which ones depended on whatever show you were doing at the time. None of it really had an explanation. It was kind of… random? Like, rituals that were made up just for the fun of it, almost like a joke.

Oh, and there’s another one — this one’s more universal in drama circles — you can’t say ‘Macbeth’ onstage. Like, you just don’t say his name. Because supposedly it’ll bring bad luck to your whole company. Because Macbeth is a traitor, right. Yeah. So that one’s more of a real thing.

But the other ones, like the hair and the colors, those were just ours. No real reason behind them.”

Context: This piece was collected in a one-on-one interview with a college student who was a member of a drama club during high school in China. The conversation happened casually and organically, with the informant recalling these customs in a relaxed, amused tone. At one point, the interviewer drew a comparison to the folk belief that athletes should abstain from sex before a game for physical reasons — the informant acknowledged the similarity but pointed out the difference: the athletic belief has a concrete physical rationale, whereas the drama club rules had none at all, which almost seemed to be the point.

Analysis: The pre-performance rituals described here fit into a well-documented tradition of occupational folklore among performers. These kinds of customs are common in theater communities worldwide, serving to build group identity, mark the mental shift into “performance mode,” and give people a structured way to deal with pre-show nerves. What’s interesting here is that the informant herself doesn’t fully buy into them — she describes the club-specific rules as arbitrary, almost comedic. And yet they were still followed. This speaks to how folk practices can persist even without belief, because the ritual itself becomes part of what it means to belong to the group.

The “Macbeth taboo” is one of the most widely recognized superstitions in Western theater, often traced back to early modern English stage tradition. The fact that it showed up in a Chinese high school drama club is a small but telling sign of how theatrical culture — and its accompanying folklore — has traveled globally. The club-specific rules, on the other hand, represent something more local and invented: customs that don’t need history or logic to survive, just a group of people who keep doing them together.

Rose, Theater Ghost Memorate

Age: 19

Story: What I remember is that Rose was a former student that died in the school and haunted the theatre in particular. She would bang around in the cats [catwalks] and ventilation especially if you were the only one in the theatre. Among techs I think there was more serious beliefs about how to treat Rose, aka ghost light and personally always saying hi and bye to rose if I was the first one in or last one out, or if she made noises I would talk to her sometimes. – JH

Context: This story was told directly to the archivist as a friend. It is regarding a ghost that was thought to populate their high school theater since the program’s inception.

Teller seems fairly convinced of the rituals that go into the ghost, they mention turning on the ‘ghost light,’ which is the last light left on the stage when people have left, and talking to it in their spare time.

Theaters are often places that claim to experience ghosts. The story of Rose was passed between multiple generations of student tech workers, perhaps to explain things like the weird banging in the ventilation shafts or unexplainable tech problems. There is no evidence showing that a former student died in the school, but a mockumentary was made by some former theater students showcasing Rose’s inception.