Bob and Betty Fashingbauer are among more than 1,600 volunteers who usher for Chicago-area theatres and music ensembles under the auspices of the local organization, the Saints. In addition to ushering several nights a week, Bob coordinates the volunteer ushers for Chicago Chamber Musicians, Chicago Master Singers, Chicago String Quartet, Concertante di Chicago, Lake Forest Symphony, and Music of the Baroque.
Name: Bob and Betty Fashingbauer
Position: Usher Coordinator (Bob), and Volunteer Ushers (both)
Years: Nine
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Q. How’d you get started as ushers?
A. Betty: I taught school for 30-plus years, and several teacher friends were doing it and they kept saying it would be something that I would enjoy once I retired from teaching. That’s how we started. Bob didn’t want to go. The first time, he was very hesitant about it, [but] we had such a wonderful time. For the first 30 years of our married life, I took care of the social schedule, but I didn’t plan enough ushering duties, [so] he took over the social structure. He’s out almost every night.
Q. How many nights a month do you usher?
A. Bob: Somewhere between 15 or 20.
A. Betty: Or 25.
A. Bob: Yes, but the theatres are closed on Monday.
A. Betty: What happens with those four or five is we fit in the opera. He’s changed our whole schedule so we go to the opera on Monday nights because most of the theatres are closed. He’s allergic to the house.
Q. Where have you volunteered?
A. Betty: Last night we were at Court Theatre [for] “My Fair Lady.” We were at Apple Tree Theatre, Chicago Symphony.
A. Bob: Steppenwolf.
A. Betty: We do little things, too. Haydn Festival in Oak Park. Last week was the first time we did that. Chicago Master Singers, Bella Voce, Chicago a Capella, Lifeline, Northlight.
A. Bob: If they have Saints for ushers, we have probably been there. Sometimes some of these smaller theatres, because they have limited resources, make up for it in imagination.
A. Betty: Wonderful productions. You could almost go to one every night. Our record was 12 in one week.
Q. Do you have favorite places to volunteer?
A. Bob: We do like to go to Chicago Symphony. It certainly is one of the finest music ensembles and musical places in the world.
A. Betty: That being said, the Chicago Sinfonietta is truly magnificent. It’s amazing how as we’ve been exposed to so much more, it’s added so much to our ability to appreciate and understand.
Q. What are your responsibilities as ushers?
A. Betty: We have to show up an hour to an hour and fifteen minutes ahead of time. We stuff programs, we tear tickets, we answer questions, sometimes we show them to the seat, sometimes we just show them where the seats are.
A. Bob: Smile.
A. Betty: Always smile. At the end of the performance we always pick up programs. I get asked more questions than Bob, I don’t know why that is.
A. Bob: Bob is too busy working to stand around.
A. Betty: (Laughing) That was very good. And sometimes patrons have complaints: It’s too hot, it’s too cold, how come there’s no parking.
A. Bob: Being a diplomat helps. Yes somebody is taking care of that, yes we will mention it to the house manager. The idea is to calm down people, make them feel like their opinion counts, which it does. This is a big part of what our job is, to make the patrons happy.
Q. Have you ever had to perform any out-of-the-ordinary tasks?
A. Betty: We took the coffeepots home from one theatre and put them in the dishwasher (laughs) because they were so terrible I couldn’t stand it.
A. Bob: There was another time when one of the other ushers slipped and fell and cut her ear, and Betty, having handled this sort of stuff as a schoolteacher, took care of her until the paramedics arrived.
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A. Betty: At one of the venues that Bob is the coordinator for, one of the players thought it was a rehearsal and didn’t have his tuxedo. He was the same size as one of the other ushers, and the other usher gave him his tuxedo so he could play onstage.
Q. Bob, how do you manage to coordinate ushers for six different groups?
A. Bob: It sounds more difficult than it is. Unlike other usher coordinators, they have to get ushers three times a week. Chicago String Quartet, they have four concerts per season and I have to get four ushers, that’s 16 ushers a year. It’s not such a big deal. The largest number of people I need is for Chicago Master Singers; they have a total of seven performances per season, and I need anywhere form 12 to 16 ushers for each. That’s just a drop in the bucket compared to somebody like Steppenwolf that needs eight ushers five or six times a week for maybe 30 weeks a year.
Q. What does coordinating volunteers entail?
A. Bob: First of all you sign them up. Second of all, you assign them to be there, and third of all, an hour and half before the performance, you have to field phone calls–my car broke down, I broke my leg, my grandmother’s pregnant [laughs]. That’s why I have waiting lists whenever I can. I do have a little flexibility. If a group says they need five ushers, I’ll schedule six, and you always find something to do if all six show up.
Q. How many volunteers do you work with?
A. Bob: For the past couple of years I have built up an email list of about 100 ushers and a snail mail list of about 20 more. They get first crack at various things because they have ushered for me before.
Q. How do you manage to get them to the right places on the right nights?
A. Bob: That’s why God made computers. I have all the dates listed out, I have all the ushers that I have signed up for each [matched] to the dates listed with either their email address or their phone number and take it from there.
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For more information about being a volunteer usher, contact the Saints at 773-529-5510, by email at info@saintschicgo. Or, or visit www.saintschicago.org.