Arched like the dome of heaven, illumined with a glow not brilliant but warm and intimate, carpeted with velvet that gives gently to the tread of many feet, the air vaguely scented with a perfume that has no name, row upon row of wide, soft-armed chairs facing a curtain that falls in long, mysterious folds—silent, expectant, tantalizing, inviting—a world all its own—THE THEATER.

Behind that curtain—the same world bounded by brick walls. Scenery with act numbers scrawled in charcoal across its back being shoved into place, hustling property men, frantic stage manager, nervous director giving last minute husky orders, anxiously repeated lines and cues, the final touches of make-up, restive feet striding dressing-room floors. There is the murmur of hushed voices, its excited undercurrent like a rising chant, the tremulo of uncertainty, the eager activity of that suspended moment of waiting for the curtain to lift.

Actors and audience—they must for a few brief hours change places if this world made for forgetfulness, this house of dreams is to realize its unwritten law:—“Abandon care, all ye who enter here:” The spirit of the theater lays magic fingers over tired eyes. The audience steps across the footlights and becomes the actor, throbs to his emotions, sheds his tears, tingles with his laughter. The actor must step across the footlights and become the audience, feel his pulse beat, sense his pleasure or disapproval, know his reaction.

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And in proportion to the measure with which each becomes the other, the enthusiasm with which the audience acts, the keenness with which the actor observes, the play lives. The house of dreams is alight! But if either should fail—and if one fail, it is because the other does—then the play is phantom. A stalking ghost walks the boards. The house of dreams goes dark!