Sitting in her dressing room before a recent matinee, Ms. Prince, 43, said the moment was worth waiting for.

Here and there her inexperience shows - a tendency to rush her lines in the early going of a recent matinee, a passing swallowed word, some cartoonish facial expressions.

Between a recent matinee and evening performance, Miss Havoc ate salad-bar takeout and talked, mostly talked.

"It's the kind of character that not everybody was right in tune with," she said on a recent chilly matinee afternoon.

The audience begins to react as the audience reacted at a recent matinee at Theater East, as if it were reviving its acquaintance with likable if eccentric old friends.

"Anne of Green Gables" certainly appears to be going for the American Girl demographic, which was well represented at a recent matinee.

The scene: A recent matinee of "Sideman."

"My average recognition factor is three people a day," Mr. Lang said in his dressing room after a recent matinee.

Indeed, a check of 100 people attending a recent matinee of "Jersey Boys" found very few who said they objected to paying for building maintenance.

Such brightly grotesque brutality prompted squeals of laughter among the younger theatergoers around me at a recent matinee.