Why is the actors resting area called the Green Room?

Tom, Reading UK

• One speculation is that the actor's holding area was once covered in a protective green felt-like material, which was also used on the stage floor to protect the actors' costumes from dirt and dust. I heard this explanation during a backstage theatre tour.

  Diane Telgen, Northwood, UK

• The Oxford Companion to the Theatre entry under Green Room says that the first reference is in Thomas Shadwell''s play A True Widow (1678). The relevant line from act four of that play is : Stanmore : "No madam: Selfish, this Evening, in a green Room, behind the Scenes, was before-hand with me..." It also says that the only ''proper'' green room now is at Drury Lane. Green Rooms - where actors met before and after performances to entertain friends - were also known as Scene Rooms (or Screen Rooms, for scenery storage) and green might be a corruption of scene. Early English theatres had several, graded hierarchically according to the salary of the actor.

  Richard Thompson, Allerod, Denmark

• I always thought the actors' resting area was called the Job Centre.

  David Vickery, Croydon, UK

• Green is a calming colour and is used to calm stage-fright! Hospital wards are often painted green for the same reason.

  Chris Lewis, Manchester UK

• I understood the reason to be that the first room with such a purpose was at Drury Lane, and that because it was green the name was more widely applied to rooms in other theatres whatever the colour.

  Jerry Strachan, Wolfratshausen Germany