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

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

Miller, 29, is the latest British film star to tread the boards in the West End.

From Reuters • Jan. 21, 2011

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