tread the boards

Idioms  

1. Act on the stage, as in Her main ambition was to tread the boards in a big city. This idiom uses boards in the sense of “a theatrical stage,” a usage dating from the mid-1700s. It dates from the mid-1800s but was preceded by the idiom tread the stage, first recorded in 1691.

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Example Sentences

At 83, he is eager to tread the boards once again — and to continue working as steadily as he has for the last six decades.

From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 22, 2024

Antony Costa is swapping the boy band Blue to tread the boards while embracing his Greek heritage.

From BBC • Sep. 1, 2023

For his 2012 album, “Viva Duets,” he collaborated with Latin American artists like Chayanne, Thalía and Marc Anthony; in Newark, he’ll tread the boards with one of his daughters, the singer Antonia Bennett.

From New York Times • Nov. 12, 2015

Inevitably, Nell Gwyn, the most famous actor in London at a moment when women were at last allowed to tread the boards, looms large here.

From The Guardian • Jun. 4, 2012

As the doctor and her attendant were about placing her in a sedan-chair to bear her away, a strange desire seized her to behold the theatre and tread the boards once more.

From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 04, No. 23, September, 1859 by Various