Getting to those works, however, meant wading through two curtain raisers, which is at least one too many.
In a way, the city's skyline has long been a stage set, the curtain raiser for the American dream.
It was the curtain raiser for the election tragedy of August 1854.
The latter was immediately replaced by a series of other curtain raisers.
If the piece began the performance, it was called a curtain raiser.
The curtain raiser for this match was played by a makeshift team of Japanese university students.
And this, he reminded himself, was only the curtain raiser.
It is also a 'curtain raiser' to the second game, to be played by the Mariners.
It is the curtain raiser to the Omani football season.
There was the night in 1972 when, as the curtain raiser for his latest feature.