Supernumerary

   During the last quarter of the 19th century, when touring companies presented Shakespeare or other historical dramas, they regularly engaged local amateurs as supernumeraries, often called supes, supers, or extras, to fill in the crowd scenes. Because they often swelled the ranks of an army for battle scenes, supers were sometimes pejoratively referred to as "spear-carriers." Locally hired extras were also known as "jobbers." Sometimes the gallery gods would call out "Supe! Supe!" when they recognized the awkwardness of the amateur amid professional actors. In professional eyes (according to the Kansas City Journal, 8 March 1927), supers were "lanky-limbed, raw-boned men with ill-fitting tights and no make-up." They were the ones who looked nervous in a calm scene and perfectly unconcerned during a battle, or who shouted "Aye, Aye!" several seconds after the regular actors had given the cry. In those days before stage unions, the supers were sometimes ordered to carry furniture on or off stage or perform other menial tasks, all for the lowly fee of 25 cents per performance, except for the first performance, when the money went, "through an unwritten law backstage," to the property man. As many as 200 supers might be hired for a spectacle like Richard Mansfield's production of Henry V, but 15 usually sufficed for melodramas of the period.