Backstage pass.

The sound of Chopin on a distant piano--an chide--fills the very clean, open backstage of Yerba Buena Theatre at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. The scats are all empty now and the main curtain is down. Backstage is exposed because the legs are up, which means the curtains that are usually hung on the sides of the stage during the show are now dangling high above in the abyss of a ceiling called the fly gallery.

Everything is black or painted black, and the lights that are strategically placed around the space illuminate all the right areas with the right glow. A lamp above the props table reveals six cups, three flashlights, two bullwhips, and a box of swords. There is a light above the rosin box and one near the quick-change booth, where costumes are carefully hung. A lady is steaming a shirt with one of those mutant vacuum-cleaner-water-bottle gizmos. Each valuable costume is taken care of between the shows.

"Ten minutes to curtain," the stage manager says. "This is your ten-minute call."

By now the legs are down again and dancers from Smuin Ballet anxiously stretch onstage in sweatpants and full stage makeup or engage in pre-performance rituals--trying difficult steps, practicing partnering lifts, and pirouetting compulsively. This is preparation that the audience never sees.

The muffled sounds of the audience filter through the main curtain--it's the sound of building anticipation. When it hushes, it's like Pavlov's bell: Each dancer's heartbeat quickens to the growing quiet. In a circle, silently holding hands, the dancers look the others in the eye to make sure everyone is together and ready. Artistic Director Michael Smuin gives them some encouraging words.

"Places, ladies and gentlemen, places," the stage manager's whispered call is heard onstage. Site returns to her podium downstage right behind the proscenium arch. Site says into a microphone, "House lights off and curtain up at the same time."

Her voice is heard in all the right places--the sound booth, the fly area, the lighting booth. "On go," she continues. "Ready ... go."

Then the mare curtain ascends, the lights shine, and the waiting pays off. The audience, the dancers, the musicians, the stagehands--everyone comes together, all bound in the moment.

The image of a fox is projected only, the scrim, silhouetted by a full moon, and as if by magic, it becomes Zorro, played by Rodolphe Cassand. Zorro gallantly defeats a pack of early Spanish southern Californian soldiers to save the charming Rosa. The choreography continues backstage as Cassand runs into the wings: His shift is open and his mask is off even before he arrives where two dressers wait next to his carefully pre-placed costume. He and his dressers unbutton and unzip, unlace and re-tie in a frantic, frenzied unison. One dresser hands him some tissue and he dries his face while the other tightens his collar. He grabs a sip of water from a waiting paper cup and he's off--back onstage for another fight.

The audience soon roars with laughter when the hero, in three dramatic motions, adds Iris trademark to the evil Captain Monastario, who turns to face the audience with a big, bloody Z slashed across his chest--an illusion made with Velcro, some thread, and a gifted costume designer. On one side of the tunic is a rip-away soldier's jacket; under, math is a torn white T-shirt emblazoned with the jagged zigzag.

Behind the scenes, stagehands star in the hidden choreography. A set roils onstage with the help of a carpenter who pushes it with a long stick. A large set piece is flown in from above by the fly man, who operates the theater's counterweight system. This pulley system gives him the mechanical advantage to lift 800 pounds of backdrop quickly into the fly gallery. Suddenly, the stage is a 1920s movie theater. Dance, costumes, production design, story, music, and audience all come together to make it real.

At curtain call, the audience stands up and amps the evening with applause. Before it can exit, however, the dancers have already disappeared. Literally twenty seconds after final curtain the dancers are in their changing rooms, the work lights are on, the legs are up, and a stagehand is dry-mopping the stage. Every moment is precious and no one wastes a second. A rack of lights descends slowly from the fly gallery like an alien mother-ship. Electricians must change the color filters to prepare for the next performance. Costumes are quickly and carefully hung up or taken to the laundry.

Outside, a small flock of cosmopolitans wait for friends and autographs. A dancer emerges and hugs her aunt and mother. Before they get to the lounge at Hotel W across the street, the backstage is absolutely still and peaceful again. A single light is on--the ghost light, called that, presumably, because it's there so that the ghosts can see when everyone else is sleeping. (But it's really there so nobody wanders onstage and falls into the orchestra pit.) It's a beautiful thing--an empty theater lit by a ghost light--one more thing the audience rarely sees.

Former dancer Eric Wolfram is a documentary filmmaker, freelance writer, and entrepreneur.