Trois Coups de Bâton
"The Three Knocks"
Two elements combined to create the traditional candle snuffing and “three knocks” which begin each performance at the Peterborough Players. In June of 1933, when Edith Bond Stearns and her children decided to turn their barn on Hadley Road into “Our Playhouse”, there was no electricity in the structure. Sally Stearns Brown (incidentally the first woman to graduate from the Yale School of Drama with a MFA in lighting design and subsequently Managing Director of the theatre for over twenty years, succeeding her mother) lit the newly erected stage with kerosene lanterns. The “houselights” were comprised of every candle stick and candelabra that could be scrounged from the neighborhood. Also, no electricity, meant no headsets for communication between the front of house and backstage – if, in fact headsets had even been invented.
This present day essential to theatrical production didn’t show up at the Peterborough Players until well into the 1980s! Nor was there any direct route from the auditorium to backstage. Emile Belliveau, the director of Manikin and Minikin, the first play presented that June 18 almost a century ago, was - as one might guess - a Frenchman. The tradition in France, dating from the court of Louis XIV, was for a courtier to stride to the middle of the playing area, then strike his staff three times on the floor to quiet the audience and announce the beginning of the entertainment. The tradition is known as “Trois Coups de Bâton.”
So, two very practical issues for M. Belliveau to solve: how to quiet the audience when the play was to begin? How to communicate from front of house to backstage when it was time to begin? The solution. Two ushers would snuff the candles in the back of the auditorium near the entranceway, process down the aisle, then snuff the candles in the candelabras on either side of the stage. The audience would quiet in anticipation. One usher would then knock three times with a heavy candle-snuffer on the stage left proscenium (to your right) wall behind which was then the tiny “booth” to cue the actors and crew that the audience was present, settled in their seats and the moment had arrived. It shifted to the other side of the theater in 1992. Trois Coups de Bâton. A 92-year-old tradition was begun.
Would you like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to participate on our Trois Coups de Baton? Watch for our silent auction to open on October 19th and place your bid!
So, two very practical issues for M. Belliveau to solve: how to quiet the audience when the play was to begin? How to communicate from front of house to backstage when it was time to begin? The solution. Two ushers would snuff the candles in the back of the auditorium near the entranceway, process down the aisle, then snuff the candles in the candelabras on either side of the stage. The audience would quiet in anticipation. One usher would then knock three times with a heavy candle-snuffer on the stage left proscenium (to your right) wall behind which was then the tiny “booth” to cue the actors and crew that the audience was present, settled in their seats and the moment had arrived. It shifted to the other side of the theater in 1992. Trois Coups de Bâton. A 92-year-old tradition was begun.
Would you like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to participate on our Trois Coups de Baton? Watch for our silent auction to open on October 19th and place your bid!