trick: onstage impossible number

Category: Topics

Definition: Technically impossible because the number is supposed to take place on stage, but the space is actually opening. Includes also trick numbers where Astaire walks on the ceiling.

Example: “My Forgotten Man” (Gold Diggers 1933); “Waterfall” (Footlight Parade) (generally speaking, all Busby Berkeley’s numbers starting on a theatre stage); “Seeing’s Believing” (Belle of New York)