Front of House and Box Office - Directing Thesis

Lenfest Center for the Arts hosts many varied arts presentations and events throughout the year, not just for the Theatre Program. The policies they have in place around Front of House and ticketing reflect their, and our, priorities of ensuring a positive experience for patrons of all the events happening at Lenfest, and maximizing the number of people who see the Theatre Program’s performances.

The Theatre Program is represented by:

  • Production Management (Corrie Beth Knott & Brendan O'Brien)
  • Operations Manager: A full-year student service position that functions as the continuous liaison between the all the Directing/Acting Thesis shows and Lenfest.
  • Company Manager: A 1st Year crew position (typically in the TM&P concentration) attached to a specific show. The Company Manager works with both the Operations Manager and the Producer on the needs of their individual production.
  • Producer(s): The student producer(s) for the show.

The Lenfest Front of House team handles:

  • The creation and updates of each event's ShowClix information (this includes the ticketing link, and updates to inventories through collaboration with the show's Company Manager).
  • Check in and ushering for each event.

The SOA Communications Office handles:

  • The creation of key art for each show. (More details in the Graphic Design, Marketing, and Playbill Section.)
  • The creation and distribution of email marketing based on the marketing copy provided by the show.
  • The creation of the Lenfest website page for the show.

Lenfest uses Leap Event Ticketing (previously called Showclix) as their box office software.  Basic training on using Leap Event Ticketing (previously called Showclix) will be given to all who need to use it for their roles.  Audience Services Manager along with Thesis Operations Managers will train Company Managers on Leap Event Ticketing.

The link through which to reserve these tickets will be provided to Company Manager who should distribute it to the cast and creative team of the show at least 48 hours before it is released to the general public.

In the default configuration for the 2026-27 academic year there are 94 seats in the theatre. Be default, we are overselling each show by 10, meaning 104 tickets will be available for 94 seats. 

The inventories are as follows by default:

  • 77 General Admission (oversold by 10)
  • 20 Production Holds
  • 3 Blocked Seats
  • 4 ADA Seats
  • 0 removed seats
  • Total seats: 94 (with overselling 104 tickets available)

Determinations on blocked and removed seats must be finalized before tickets go on sale.  Any proposed changes after tickets go on sale must be submitted as a proposal to Production Management.

General Admission: Fairly self explanatory, these are tickets that are available to anyone to reserve. The link through which to reserve these tickets will be provided to the cast and creative team of the show at least 48 hours before it is distributed to the general public.

Production Holds: These are tickets the show is not releasing to the general public. These tickets can be used for VIPs, Industry, creative team members sitting in the house, or other important people who were unable to get tickets through General Admission. It is the responsibility of the Company Manager to inform Lenfest Front of House when they would like to release their unused holds for general admission. Broadly, it is best to have most people book directly through General Admission before using Production Holds. The Company Manager should keep a pair of Production Holds available for each performance as insurance for a VIP arriving without a ticket.

Blocked Seats: These are seats that cannot be sold because they are in use by the production (i.e. a performer sits there during the show).  These seats are physically in the theater but cannot be used by audience. 

Removed Seats: These are seats that are usually in place, but have been removed by the production (ie for lighting positions, scenic needs, etc). 

ADA Seating: Based on the size of the house, we are required to have 4 ADA positions available for all performances. These are located on the 4th floor, in the first row, where there are loose chairs that can be removed if the space is needed for a wheelchair. If these seats are not in use at the time of the show by a patron requiring ADA accommodations, they can be released to the standby list. 

The primary method of communication between Lenfest and the production is the Ticketing Form.

The Ticketing Form is a collaborative document that covers all the shows produced at Lenfest by the Theatre Program. The Company Manager for each show will be given edit access to their specific show's tab in the document. The goal is to have a resource that Lenfest Front of House can consult to answer any questions they may have with the most up to date information possible.

Sections on the Ticketing Form:

  • Run Time: Please update this as more accurate times are counted from rehearsals.
  • Intermission: A drop down menu to indicate whether an intermission is happening and how long it will be. Note that the shortest intermission is 15 minutes. This time has been chosen after monitoring many shows to see how long audiences actually need to use the restroom and return to their seats.
  • Ticketing Overview: This covers the default inventories for the entire run of the production. Please confirm that these numbers are accurate. Blocked Seats and Production Holds are the most likely inventories that a show would know far enough ahead of time that they would want to change the defaults.
  • Seating Configuration: Typically, this line doesn’t change, unless specific approval has been granted for seating on the side balcony or on the stage.
  • Pre-Show Preference: Patrons may either enter from the 4th floor or the 5th floor. ADA always enters from the 4th floor to access the first row. Since the restrooms are on the 4th floor, FoH will default to having patrons enter there if no preference is indicated.
  • Late Seating: This is where the show can indicate their late seating preference (Yes/No, when it will happen, where seats will be held).  The house right section of the last row seats on the balcony is by default the location for late seating, as these seats can be accessed from the 5th floor entrance with as little disruption to the show as possible. These seats will be marked as reserved. Lenfest Front of House will fill these seats last as patrons enter prior to curtain.
  • Reports: This defines when box office reports are sent out.
  • Sensitive Content: Any content warnings should be listed here.
  • Show Specific Inventories: This is where the Company Manager can indicate when they want to release Production Holds into General Admission. 

Anytime a change or update is made to the Ticketing Form please make a comment that tags Dawn Clements (@[email protected]), Ethan Caso ([email protected]), and (Lenfest Audience Services (@[email protected]) so they know to update the inventories.  Please also assign the comment to Lenfest Audience Services.

In collaboration with the Producer, the Company Manager will update Lenfest Front of House / Audience Services Manager with any changes to the production holds or blocked seats. 

One the right hand side of the Ticketing Form is a breakdown of the ticket inventories for each specific performance. As you release holds into general admission, please update these inventories. You no longer need to send a separate email to Lenfest requesting these changes. For Directing Theses, the Company Manager should be the one updating these inventories. 

The final deadline to release unused Production Holds or Blocked Seats into General Admission is 6pm the day before matinee performances or 12pm the day of evening performances. Seats released after those times will not appear as reservable tickets online, but will be available to distribute to the standby line.

If the Company Manager wishes to use their two emergency tickets, either for a VIP or for the standby line at the time of the show, they should let Lenfest Front of House know in person at the time of use.


IMPORTANT: Anytime a change or update is made to the Ticketing Form, make a comment on at least one of the cells you edited and tag Dawn Clements (@[email protected]) and Lenfest Audience Services (@[email protected]).  Please also assign the comment to Lenfest Audience Services. This will ping them to let them know something has changed. While the Lenfest Box Office will be closely watching these sheets, a quick notification helps ensure things happen promptly. They also can mark the comment as resolved to verify that the updates have been done.

When making a reservation on Leap, both Company Managers and patrons going through the General Admission link can book a maximum of two tickets per reservation.

If a patron needs more than two tickets, they can create as many separate reservations as they like. When there are multiple separate reservations under the same name for the same performance, the Lenfest team will reach out to that person to ensure they are actually using all the tickets and didn’t accidentally reserve multiple times. The Company Manager should also keep an eye out for potential double bookings to let the Lenfest team know.

If the Company Manager needs to reserve more than two tickets for a person please list the reservations as [name 1 of 2] and [name 2 of 2]. This will indicate to the box office that the double booking was intentional. 

This policy is in place to balance patron's ease of making reservations with trying to avoid people from reserving more tickets than they will actually use.

An hour before the show, the Lenfest Front of House team will start a standby list for patrons who did not reserve a ticket in advance.

If there are still General Admission tickets available, they will be issued on a first-come first-serve basis.

If the production is sold out, Lenfest's policy is to begin releasing unclaimed tickets 15 minutes before curtain to the standby list. In practice, they usually provide a grace period to people with reservations, depending on the size of the standby list and the number of open seats in the house. The Company Manager should collaborate in real time with Lenfest FoH as to when to release tickets to the standby list.

Historically, there have only been a few times the entire standby list has not been able to be accommodated for a show. We encourage productions to message to their audiences to come even if a show appears to be sold out online.

Lenfest will open the house 30 minutes prior to curtain.  The production should not plan to hold house opening unless there is an emergency situation.  

Opening house should not be held for more than 5 minutes if at all possible. (A reminder: there are no restrooms in the downstairs lobby at Lenfest. Any audience member who needs to use the restroom has to wait until house is open and access is granted to the 4th floor.) Please schedule any fight and/or intimacy calls with this in mind.

Since it is common that there are multiple events happening in the building, changing the time house opens can be difficult, as it may affect the ability for the Lenfest FoH team to also serve the other performances and events. Any requests to modify the house opening time must be submitted at least 2 weeks prior to opening.

The minimum amount of time house between house opening and curtain is 15 minutes.

The house right section of the last row seats on the balcony is by default the location for late seating, as these seats can be accessed from the 5th floor entrance with as little disruption to the show as possible. These seats will be marked as reserved. Lenfest Front of House will fill these seats last as patrons enter prior to curtain.

In general, Lenfest Front of House will do their best to seat patrons late if seats are available. The Creative Team for the show should define if there is a specific moment late seating should or should not occur, and communicate that to Front of House. Stage Management should be involved in this discussion if they are potentially going to have a late seating call.

During pre-show, while the house is open, and during intermission the stage manager will communicate with the Front of House team on their radios.  The Stage Manager can use their headset in the booth to speak with FOH using the Motorola 5 channel.  Stage Managers should be sure to set Motorola channel 5 "on" so that they can listen to that channel during these times.  If the SM needs to leave the booth, there is also a physical radio in the booth that the SM can walk around with.  Please be sure to set this to channel 5 if using it during pre-show, house opening, or intermission. 

Once the performance starts, the SM can mute Motorola channel 5 so that they do not need to hear the front of house team talking in their headset while calling the show.  If the SM is muting channel 5 in their headset, they need to keep their physical walkie talkie on and set to channel 8.  If there is an emergency situation during the performance, the front of house team will contact the SM on channel 8 to alert them of the emergency and discuss next steps.  

If the SM needs to contact the front of house team during the performance, they need to unmute Motorola Channel 5 on their headset and speak with the front of house team on channel 5.  Channel 8 is only used emergency situations.