Stewarding is a great option for avid theatre-goers unwilling to shoulder the burden of the ever-increasing price of ADC tickets. Don’t fancy paying £12 for a play to support a friend’s single-line performance? No problem! Sign yourself up for a stewarding slot and be there at the theatre door to watch your acquaintances plunge through the depths of their Outlook inboxes for the tickets they foolishly purchased at full price.

Yet when I mention stewarding to those not in the Cambridge Theatre Facebook group, I’m usually met with vacant stares. Few among the broader student population are aware of what could be a great way to experience student theatre on the cheap.

It’s not as if stewarding opportunities are massively publicised - my introduction to it came entirely by mistake. Having keenly shown up to a play half an hour early, I was caught in a tense exchange between the producer and the duty manager: the steward hadn’t shown up. Volunteering to do it seemed like a polite thing, my only other option being to sit quietly in the box office until the house opened. I was handed a shrunken blue t-shirt bearing the ADC logo, told where to sit and what to do in the unlikely event there was a fire, and directed to stand by the door and check tickets. The play itself was distinctly unmemorable - but stewarding had me in its grips.

“The play itself was distinctly unmemorable - but stewarding had me in its grips”

Sure, the limited available slots per performance make stewarding a slightly unreliable way of getting to shows - but signing up a week in advance usually guarantees a place. In a lot of ways stewarding is rewarding. I had never had a job before my first stewarding shift and it was a low pressure introduction to customer service in the minor sense of asking people if they’d like to buy a programme.

The duty-managers are friendly in the way that you only become when you spend much of your work day wrangling young adults. Once, they let me man the box office, selling tickets on the door. Choosing where to seat ‘proper’ adult theatre-goers made me feel powerful in quite a minor and ridiculous way.

Stewarding for a show moulds your whole experience down to the seat you sit in. Approaching shows as a steward made me more critical of them than I would have been otherwise. You are acutely aware that you are trading your labour for the experience, which can be a gamble. There are a lot of brilliant shows in Cambridge, ones which are profound, beautiful, thought provoking, which make stewarding feel truly rewarding. You feel incredibly invested in your theatrical experience, I think in part because it represents such an effort and time commitment to seeing the show.

“My time stewarding left me with a newfound appreciation for amateur dramatics”

On the other hand, stewarding doesn’t always feel like a great trade-off for a night at the theatre. No one likes to watch a play not to their tastes, let alone when you’ve sacrificed an additional hour of your time to be there - and you can’t exactly leave in the intermission, either. Stewarding is a time commitment, and you’re not only working but sacrificing crucial last-minute-essay writing time.

Student theatre represents a lot of work from those involved, and without meaning to diminish this, stewarding a show you didn’t love doesn’t feel like a worthwhile exchange. My realisation that I would rather pay £12 for the privilege of showing up ten minutes before the curtains rose spelt the end of my stewarding career.

The action doesn’t end when the show starts, either. Last year, one performance of Much Ado About Nothing was interrupted by a heckler who then got into a spat with another audience member. The chaos was distracting for the average viewer - everyone craned their necks and contorted themselves in their seats to see what all the commotion was about, the action on stage usurped by the action off it.

But it was the steward’s responsibility to calm the situation, at least until the duty manager appeared. This is more than most stewards sign up for and resulted in a very different experience than that of the average viewer.

But I would hate for this to put any potential stewards off or for this part of it to change. Stewarding is potentially frustrating, but so is any kind of work. It provides valuable experiences for its student volunteers, and even the unexpected are great stories to tell. Stewarding is a gamble, but often a worthwhile one, with the potential to introduce theatre to the broader community who might be put off by the cost. It provides a unique approach to the theatrical experience and my time stewarding left me with a newfound appreciation for amateur dramatics. Stewarding is a valuable part of the Cambridge theatre ecosystem which everyone should try once.