English

Adjective

understage ‎(not comparable)

1. (of machinery etc) underneath the stage

Noun

understage ‎(plural understages)

1. (theater) The area beneath a stage.
   • 1900, William Paul Gerhard, Theatres: Their Safety from Fire and Panic, Their Comfort and Healthfulness‎, page 97:

     When deep pits, required in the understage for the machinery and traps, cannot be drained on account of insufficient depth of the street sewer

   • 1996, James M. Saslow, The Medici wedding of 1589: Florentine festival as Theatrum Mundi‎, page 86:

     The understage being only 9 feet (5 braccia) high, the mountain had to rise in telescoping stages

   • 2001, Augusto Boal; Adrian Jackson, Candida Blaker, Hamlet and the baker's son: my life in theatre and politics‎:

     dozens of strapping stage-hands in the understage manipulating warships, cannons dispatching balls of fire, blue smoke.

Related terms

• overstage