The music fades, the lights dim, the rustle of the sweetie papers diminishes and the coughing dies down to the level of surf breaking on a distant shore. The curtain rises and a world is illuminated in front of you with an actor blinking myopically in the glare, mouth opening and closing fully five seconds before he remembers his line. The gentle background music is interrupted by a taxi controller asking Car 22 when the hell is he going to make that pick-up in Primrose Avenue, a bulb explodes above the stage prompting a pool of yellow liquid to appear around the actor's leg then the beautiful Baroque Castle falls down.¹ And you think to yourself, who the hell is running this place?

In the perfect theatre production, the audience will leave the show totally unaware that many people have been beavering away to make the entire performance seem effortless. Some few, whilst sipping their stale wine in the interval, will idly glance through the programme and might notice all the names and titles in small print under the actor's names and perhaps pause to wonder just what all these people do.

The easiest way to meet everyone involved is to follow a play from inception to opening night. All plays start with a writer, who unsurprisingly writes the script. Some plays have more than one writer and musicals tend to have someone who writes the music, the composer and someone who writes the lyrics and brief bits of dialogue which provide the pretext for the next song. If you've ever actually listened to the lyrics of a musical, you will know that this stretches the meaning of the term 'writing' somewhat so in musicals we say 'music composed by' and 'book by', thus avoiding stretching credulity too far.

The Writer then produces the script which he hopes will be chanced upon by a Director. To enhance his or her prospects of a Director chancing upon their script, they seek out the company of Directors at every opportunity and casually mention their script. They also send them by post to every Director listed in the Art Council's guide. Many writers are Actors or Directors convinced they can do a better job.

Directors are looking for scripts that involve as few Actors as possible. This isn't just so he or she only has to try to convey his ideas to as few Actors who inevitably know better, but because it will be less expensive. The cheaper the show, the easier it is to get funding. Funding is controlled either by Producers in commercial theatres or Artistic Directors in Public Theatres. The Producer is looking to make money. He does this by finding a show that can be made cheaply so he doesn't have to borrow too much money. It has to be a show that will be easy to publicise, so he doesn't have to spend too much money on advertising and it has to be a show that will be popular so he can sell as many tickets as possible in order to pay back the money he borrowed then start making a profit. The Artistic Director is trying to make the funding for one good show stretch to six, seven or eight average shows that will keep him in a job for a year.

Once a Director has found a script that will meet his needs and a Producer or Artistic Director to pay for it, he approaches a Designer who will design a set to look like what the Director thinks the setting of the play looks like. The Designer in turn Designs a set that he thinks other Designers will be impressed by. He designs the background scenery, the furniture, the props and the costumes the Actors will wear. Once he has designed all this, everyone laughs when they see the cost. The only people not laughing are the Setbuilder and the Wardrobe Mistress.

The Setbuilder has to construct not just this set, but in a Repertory Theatre he has to build six, seven or eight sets from not enough materials to build one good set. Each set is cunningly designed to almost last one day less than the run of the show. Individual parts of the set will ingeniously be used and re-used for different shows. Thus the Drawing Room from 'Gaslight' will become the Barber Shop in 'Sweeney Todd', the King's Bedroom in 'Macbeth' and possibly the Beach House in 'The Admirable Crichton'. The Wardrobe Mistress will perform similar miracles, although she may be aided by Actors already owning clothes that will suit the part. At a pinch. Wardrobe Mistresses are also aided by having large Wardrobe Stores. These can often influence the style of a production. A skilled Wardrobe Mistress may use her considerable wiles to convince the Director that the collection of Roman togas would be simply ideal for his production of South Pacific. This may or may not cause the Designer some angst.