Text:

Informant: “One that I learned growing up that when I’ve done it in other places, people are like, “What the hell are you doing?” It’s like before the show, you’re all standing there behind the curtain waiting to go up. Usually I only end up doing this if it’s a show that I start in the first number, not if I come on later. You know one of those shows where you’re in the ensemble and everybody is standing behind the curtain waiting there. One that I always did was this” (holds hand in fist and raises thumb and pinky finger.) “Like if you’re doing sign language and signing “you and I.” You go around to the other people in the cast and you link pinkies and bite your thumb and it’s just a little way of saying “break a leg, have a good show.” It’s just a little good luck thing. I always did that at the theater that I did shows with growing up and then I went to other places and they were like, “What the hell are you doing?” I was like, “Oh,” (laughs) “Nevermind.” Other than that, when people say “Good luck” to me it makes me really anxious. I’m like “No. That’s bad luck. You can’t say “good luck,” you have to say “Break a leg.””

Interviewer: “Do you remember being taught how to do that or was it just that you observed other people doing it so you just did it, too?”

Informant: “The hand thing, I think it was something that – I did children’s theater and it was just sort of something that was in the culture of that theater. I don’t even know if they do it anymore. When I was there, I think it was the second show I ever did was Mary Poppins and everybody who starts on stage for the ensemble are frozen in their spots so we’d be standing there behind the curtain and all of the older kids would come around and show us how to do it. From there, that was something that I did most every show I was in, and teaching the younger kids how to do it.”

Interviewer: “So was it mostly younger kids and teens or were the adults doing it, too?”

Informant: “It was a children’s theater so the oldest kids were seniors in high school. The group that I was part of was late middle school and high schoolers so we wouldn’t really interact with the younger younger kids, but it was definitely the seniors in high school teaching the youngest.”

Context:

The informant was part of a community theater growing up. They learned rituals specific to their theater from the older students. When the informant went on to join college theater, they learned that other people had never heard about that particular good luck ritual.

Analysis:

Theatre has many superstitions, likely because it has been around for over 2500 years. The superstitions are shared amongst theater members who participate in plays and musicals. Traditionally, these rituals are passed on by the adults or older teens to the young children. Many of them are widely known across theater’s everywhere, such as “Break a leg” for good luck. Naturally, certain theater members will create their own superstitions or rituals that get passed on and stay within that theater, and are foreign to people outside it. The goal is that it gets taught to the younger kids by the older kids to keep the tradition alive. It can be considered a functionalist approach because it’s meant to bring good luck for the performers to do well on stage.