1.   The lights went down and the curtain rose on an empty stage.

2.   The curtain rises toward the end of the Prelude.

3.   As this curtain rises, Jeannie Steele and Derry Swan are onstage in straight-legged positions, joined later by three women.

4.   As the curtain rises, the young men wax lyrical about the fidelity of their fiances.

5.   Bob Hope introduces Kirsten Flagstad, and the curtain rises to disclose the great Norwegian soprano perched atop a rock, spear in hand, ready for anything.

6.   But when the curtain rose on his NFL career, Williams was backstage, looking on vacantly as somebody else delivered his lines.

7.   By the time the curtain rises again, her minstrel is languishing in prison.

8.   Clearing and clouding over several times a day, the sky first reveals and then obscures the mountains, like some cosmic theatrical curtain rising and falling.

9.   Doors opened and shut, curtains rose and fell, everything happened quickly.

10.   Finally, the curtain rose, but only a bit, giving the audience a view of shifting feet.