Confessions of a Box Office Manager: Delivery at stage door!

I have just finished sending off the producers’ matinee reports (it’s Christmas and we have so many extra shows we are all starting to feel like hamsters on a wheel, or as though we are living through Groundhog Day) when my phone pings. It’s a delivery company texting to inform me that my package has been dropped off at stage door. Brilliant, that means Mum’s present has arrived. I would normally get it sent to my home address but I am working so many extra hours over the festive period I wouldn’t be there to receive it, and parcels have a habit of going walkabouts in my block.

I go out through the front box office where Paul, one of the clerks, is busy putting all the COBO (or Will Call, if you’re American) tickets for the next performance into the alphabeticised filing box.

“I’m just nipping round to stage door to collect something.”

He pulls a face.

“Good luck. It’s Lud today and she’s not happy!”

“No change there then.”

Ljudmila (Lud) is one of our two full-time stage door keepers, and she is mighty fierce. She is also exceptionally glamorous (even first thing in the morning she has a full face of flawless make up, and never a jet black hair out of place) and a complete enigma. I once sat next to her at the company Christmas dinner and, emboldened by house red wine, asked her exactly where she was from. Her monotone response, “somewhere else, like so many London peoples”, delivered in a heavy Eastern European accent and coupled with a face that could freeze mercury, shut the subject down and sobered me up (well, nearly).

I’ve worked here for more than a decade and Ljudmila (or Lud as we like to call her, although never to her face) was here when I started. In that time she hasn’t aged at all. Literally, not at all. It could be Botox, or it could be that she doesn’t waste facial expressions on us mere mortals. I’ve seen her dealing with pest controllers, ushers, producers, Hollywood royalty coming backstage to visit the current occupant of the star dressing room, and actual royalty – and she handles everybody with the same inscrutable, yet oddly compelling, disdain.

This lack of engagement coupled with how beautiful she is makes her the subject of much speculation throughout the building, but again never to her face. There is a rumour that she is married to a Russian oligarch and only does this job for a hobby, but I doubt that’s true… I mean, she starts at 8am most days; why would you put yourself through that if you were one of the super-rich?

I often find myself pathetically seeking her approval, which I know is a bit tragic. On a caffeine high recently I impulse bought some new shoes which I wasn’t sure about. As I came through stage door, I thought I’d ask Lud her opinion (“they are horrible. You have receipt? Take back”). Then there was a new haircut I’d had (“you look like head has been sharpened. Like pencil”). She’s tough, I weirdly adore her and one day she will like me, or at least smile at me, goddammit.

Anyway I’m on the way out and Paul calls, “would you mind seeing if a box has arrived for me?” Coward. He hasn’t been the same with Lud since their altercation when he tried to stow his bicycle at stage door a couple of months ago. Needless to say, she won.

I arrive at stage door and it looks like the Royal Mail parcel sorting office.

“Hello Ljudmila, I believe you have an item for me.”

“Who knows?”

She waves a perfectly manicured hand towards the corridor full of boxes and packages, there are even a couple of hampers. A quick glance at the addressees suggests that apparently everybody in the building – cast, crew, front office of house, management – has had their online festive shopping sent to work. To be fair, we are all practically living here at this time of year, but still I experience a pang of guilt.

“Blimey, er ok. I’ll see if I can find it…”

She sighs.

“I help, I help.”

“No, honestly, I’ll manage.”

“I HELP!”

“Oh, ok then. Thanks very much.”

We wade in and sift through. I bend over to do so but Ljudmila picks each item up, stares at it, then hurls it back down ferociously. Crikey, I hope there aren’t breakables in there. I get the impression she’s quite enjoying herself, although her face registers nothing.

I find Mum’s present. The packaging seems intact. Marvellous. I’m about to leave when I remember Paul’s item, and ask Lud. After giving me a scrotum-shrivelling stare, she returns to her robotic routine of lifting, reading and hurling with renewed vigour, adding the occasional vicious kick at some of the larger boxes. She stops to answer the entry-bell and sure enough it’s another Christmas shopping delivery.

“You see the crap I deal with?”

“Yes Ljudmila. I do, it’s awful. I’m sorry.”

“I don’t have to accept this, you know.” CRACK! She sends another packet back to the floor at high speed.

“I could send deliveries away.” BANG! There goes another, I’m sure I heard something shattering.

“But I do this out of goodness of my heart.” THUD! She administers a resounding kick to a huge box.

“I know, and it is very much appreciated.” Well, what else can I say?

“Not by many” she mutters darkly.

Finally I locate Paul’s item, thank Lud and head back round to front of house. Before I leave she wordlessly slips a small envelope on top of my boxes. When I get into my office I open it. Ljudmila’s only gone and got us a Christmas card hasn’t she. She’s never done that before. True to form, the only thing she has written in it is the single letter ‘L’ – no greeting, no kiss, nothing. Still, I feel absurdly happy and honoured.

I give her a quick call to thank her, gushing effusively, “So so kind of you. Really lovely.”

She sighs, “Yes.”

Then she hangs up.

Paul appears at the door, smirking, “That is… pathetic, mate.”

“Haven’t you got tickets to file?”

He slopes off, openly laughing now.

Still, I’m beaming. Ten years it has taken to get a card out of her. Who knows, by the time I retire we could be exchanging gifts, and she will still look exactly the same as she does now.

It’s true though, the amount of stuff that gets delivered to the stage door around Christmas time is pretty ridiculous, and this year seems particularly overwhelming. While I’ve no doubt Lud can cope with anything, albeit with stoicism and physical violence, I make a mental note to select ‘Click and Collect’ next time I shop online. In the meantime a few fragile items may have been, ahem, damaged, but generally, everyone’s festive deliveries are in a safe place under a watchful, if disapproving, eye. And hey, nobody died. Merry Christmas.