Meaning
To act on the stage; to follow a career in the theatre. Said with affection or nostalgia and now slightly dated or tongue-in-cheek. The boards are the wooden planks of the stage floor, theatrical shorthand for the stage itself. Warm, nostalgic register; rarely used without a hint of affectionate theatrical swagger. Regional use: General English (theatrical origin).
Origin
Early stages were plank-built wooden platforms, and 'boards' has meant the stage since the mid-1700s (Wiktionary). The verb phrase has an earlier sibling: 'tread the stage', to perform in drama, is attested from the 1690s, with Wiktionary citing 1691, while the now-standard 'tread the boards' is dated by Etymonline to 1858 and by Wiktionary to the mid-1800s. French has a close parallel in 'monter sur les planches', to climb onto the boards. The pairing of a slightly poetic verb for walking with the humble material of the stage floor is what gives the English phrase its warm, faintly self-mocking theatrical flavour, and explains why it survives as a jocular way to describe any acting career.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- tread the stage
- treading the boards
- trod the boards
- walk the boards
Usage Examples
- He trod the boards for forty years, mostly in repertory theatres far from London.
- Before she was famous, she trod the boards in summer stock and pantomime.
- Their daughter has been treading the boards since she was seven, and she has the scars from the trapdoor to prove it.