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Playing Around
Not all heroes wear red capes; some wear red coats
RedCoat volunteers of Playhouse Square are the first friendly faces to greet you in the theater. Odds are if you’ve attended a show, they’ve greeted you at the door, scanned your ticket, given you a program and directed you to your seat. What would you have done without them?
It takes nearly 90 RedCoats to staff an average Broadway performance. Since expanding its KeyBank Broadway Series, Playhouse Square is on the lookout for more of these right-hand men and women.
Ella Wilson of Shaker Heights found herself with a little extra time on her hands when her daughter went off to college. Since she’s been drawn to theater, she decided to become a RedCoat. “I absolutely love every moment of it.”
Wilson especially enjoys the children’s programs at Playhouse. One busy evening at the theater, she felt a tug on her jacket. She looked down and heard a little boy say, “Excuse me, thank you for helping me.”
“That just brightened my whole day,” Wilson says.
Jim and Linda Borsuk of Westlake decided to become RedCoats together.
“My wife and I attended Playhouse Square as patrons for years,” Jim Borsuk says. “Every time we went there, everyone we ever came across weren’t just happy but glad to help you.”
They decided it was time to join the team.
“We had always talked about when we retire, when we have time, because we are both extremely busy people. Then last year, we finally said, ‘Let’s just do it.’ We just wanted to give others the same great experience we always had at the theater.”
Borsuk says it doesn’t feel much like work at all. “I can disconnect from what I do on the 9-to-5 basis and enter this other world of happiness. I don’t even look at it as work. As any volunteer will tell you, if you believe in something — whatever it is — it’s fun.”
Couples often treat their time volunteering as a date night.
“It’s a way to get out,” he says. “Even though Cleveland is a small town, there are a lot of people who volunteer from really far distances. There are some people who will drive an hour to downtown Cleveland to volunteer. Linda and I go there and we enjoy our time. You get the amount of joy that you put in.”
If directing and seating guests doesn’t sound like your style, you could choose to lead public tours of the theaters, help in the office, even help polish chandeliers. RedCoats like Borsuk also provide wheelchair escorts.
Don’t worry about having theater experience, either.
“It’s really simple tasks,” Borsuk says. “They’re not asking you to entertain. You’re given a simple job. If you’re there with a smile on your face and you’re there to help other people, it’s too easy. Sometimes I feel like I have to pay them.”
Wilson agrees, “If you like art, culture and want a feel for the theater, this is what you want. You can’t get anything better.”
Like the Borsuks, you don’t need an empty calendar to be a part of this program. As Elizabeth Andrew puts it, “Volunteers do not necessarily have the time; they just have the heart.”
To learn more, go to playhousesquare.org and look for the volunteer tab.
