Gracie Allen

I really don't act. I just live what George and I are doing. It has to make some sort of sense to me, or it won't ring true. No matter what the script says, there's no audience and no footlights and no camera for me. There's no make-believe. It's for real.

American Comedian

Bette Midler

I had a hard-scrabble childhood with my parents. I have a lot of baggage. To come down to the footlights and accept the audience's affection inside a Broadway theater - that didn't come easily to me.

American Actress

Rita Moreno

I love being onstage, I love getting applause, and I love the love that comes across the footlights. It's so much a part of what I do and what I've done most of my life.

Puerto Rican Actress

Mae West

Personality is the glitter that sends your little gleam across the footlights and the orchestra pit into that big black space where the audience is.

George Bernard Shaw

My method of getting a play across the footlights is like a revolver shooting: every line has a bullet in it and comes with an explosion.

Irish Playwright

Ivor Novello

Behind the footlights there is always the applause, which stimulates the actors. On the screen it is a different matter.

Welsh Musician

Footlights are specifically theater stage lights, not general lighting or lamps used elsewhere.

Theater Lighting

Footlights are located at the front edge of the stage, near the performers' feet, hence the name.

Positioning

Footlights is a technical term; use it when discussing stage design or theater production.

Technical Term

Footlights metaphorically represent the theater world, encompassing the life of actors and performances.

Theatrical Life

'In the footlights' means to be in the center of theatrical activity or in the public eye.

Figurative Usage

To dream of being 'in the footlights' is to aspire to be a performer or to be famous.

Personal Dream

 she didn't think she was going to like it, she had never heard a violin before, but that hearing this music was like hearing the sunshine, and that nobody ever came to visit them, and that for the first time in six years, when she heard us play, she stopped shaking without medication. Suddenly, what we're finding with these concerts, away from the stage, away from the footlights, out