‘Looking back, that place felt like a cradle’ … Freya Bennett worked as an usher in one of Australia’s busiest performing arts theatres. Composite: Getty Images / Lauren David View image in fullscreen ‘Looking back, that place felt like a cradle’ … Freya Bennett worked as an usher in one of Australia’s busiest performing arts theatres. Composite: Getty Images / Lauren David A job that changed me Music A job that changed me: Being a theatre usher cracked open my heart to beauty The performances often gave me goose bumps, but I also got to observe the highs and lows of audience behaviour
Prefer the Guardian on Google I was 24, had just moved into a share house I couldn’t afford, and my job as a nanny was proving less than ideal. I’d graduated from my music degree a few years prior and was floating along, feeling a little lost.
A friend had told me to apply to become a front-of-house staff member at Australia’s busiest performing arts centre, Arts Centre Melbourne. It was a rare opportunity, as people rarely quit. To be surrounded by art again sounded like a dream.
I progressed to the final interview round. Anxious about nailing it and unable to study for it – for some unknown reason, a maths quiz was involved – I focused purely on appearance. I blew my budget on a blow wave, planning to charm the interviewers with my perfect hair and Target office-casual best.
Whether it was my hair or the secret texts to my friend asking for help answering the maths quiz, I got the job.
Read more My first shift was inside door 1 of the centre’s State Theatre. It was the easiest place to avoid royally stuffing things up, and I could be kept under close supervision. I watched Madama Butterfly from my little fold-down seat, goose bumps exploding all over my body. I had never had any interest in opera and, apart from being an unwilling audience to my grandfather’s car DJ set – which consisted entirely of opera – I had rarely listened to it. But watching these incredible performers in a historic theatre, I felt like a wide-eyed kid discovering music for the first time.
From there I ricocheted around theatres, learning the labyrinth under the complex’s famous spire. I saw Summer of the Seventeenth Doll no fewer than 17 times; I savoured spine-tingling performances by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. When my box seat patrons didn’t show up, I cried alone in my section during the Australian Ballet’s production of Arvo Pärt’s Spiegel im Spiegel . Boyband Human Nature got audience members, of all ages, dancing out of their seats – to this day, their show is one of the best performances I’ve seen.
View image in fullscreen ‘I felt like a wide-eyed kid discovering music for the first time’ … State Theatre at Arts Centre Melbourne. Photograph: Ellen Smith/The Guardian I also saw the highs and lows of patron behaviour. I thought of the audience as my precious babies, albeit ones I could watch from a distance with love and fascination. I saw a little girl’s first ballet concert; a grown man who, when I said he couldn’t take his ice-cream in, angrily threw his unwrapped Magnum in the bin; a woman, breathless after a coughing fit, graciously accepting that she couldn’t return to the show she’d been so looking forward to because of the door policy. People came as they were – joyful, messy, broken, hopeful, and I relished the hours of people-watching.
A few years into the job, I was stationed outside the door of an over-the-top musical when I met a fellow usher who…