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

But, in the words of his biographer Kate Bassett: "He could not both walk the wards and tread the boards."

From BBC • Nov. 27, 2019

She handed me her new album, autographed 'To Richard, thou shalt tread the boards.

From New York Times • Aug. 21, 2012

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

Here commonplace, everyday, ordinary people tread the boards.

From The Blue Goose by Nason, Frank Lewis