How to Use upstage in a Sentence

upstage

1 of 2 verb

• We don't want the flower girl upstaging the bride.
• My apple pie was upstaged by her chocolate cake.
• The egg came first, but the chicken would not be upstaged.
  — Hannah Goldfield, The New Yorker, 11 Aug. 2023
• But as of the past year, the BBQ has been upstaged by the second-to-last weekend of June.
  — Detroit Free Press, 23 June 2019
• Trask will have a chance at the next level to upstage the Gators’ legendary trio.
  — Edgar Thompson, orlandosentinel.com, 2 Apr. 2021
• He was upstaged by the five large men crouched before him.
  — Rainer Sabin, Detroit Free Press, 27 Oct. 2019
• Its role is clear: Keep the scoop upright, don’t leak and don’t upstage the main player, the ice cream.
  — New York Times, 26 May 2022
• After decades of being upstaged by the lobes, the rest of the ear is ready for its glow-up moment.
  — Washington Post, 16 Jan. 2024
• Some suggest the host's celebrity shouldn't upstage the players and their race to win cash.
  — Lynette Rice, EW.com, 14 Aug. 2021
• Kennedy needed something to regain his stature on the world stage, and upstage Khrushchev.
  — Francis French, Smithsonian, 20 July 2019
• How do the Mavericks upstage all the above? By winning.
  — Dallas News, 28 Mar. 2022
• This prom-worthy pile of sequins will upstage every full-length gown in the room.
  — Hannah Oh, Seventeen, 22 Nov. 2022
• Leave it to the NBA to drop a little off-the-court news to upstage its most anticipated event.
  — oregonlive, 29 Sep. 2020
• But if there has been a feud, not upstaging Kate in the matter of tiaras could be one way Hanbury is trying to keep the peace.
  — Martha Ross, The Mercury News, 6 June 2019
• The showroom dummies upstage the humans, but also stand in for them.
  — Washington Post, 22 Oct. 2021
• Hooded gowns could upstage sheer dresses as the hottest red-carpet trend in 2023.
  — Hanna Lustig, Glamour, 6 Dec. 2022
• Much of the propulsive energy of the first season came from the cousins’ efforts to upstage each other.
  — Inkoo Kang, The New Yorker, 7 Sep. 2023
• His ovation upstaged that for the man who was retiring.
  — Ann Killion, SFChronicle.com, 29 Sep. 2019
• Only the world’s biggest movie star could upstage her own movie with each fearsome scowl.
  — Joey Nolfi, EW.com, 15 Oct. 2019
• But soon after the scheduled start time for the Democrats’ rally, dozens of Trump supporters arrived with their chants and flags to upstage the event.
  — Kaitlyn Schallhorn, San Diego Union-Tribune, 30 Sep. 2023
• Rapsody might be the only rapper ever to upstage Kendrick Lamar on his song.
  — cleveland, 8 June 2020
• Don’t upstage it, but turn to it to find colors to pull out for large, upholstered pieces and accessories.
  — Marni Jameson, orlandosentinel.com, 23 July 2021
• Witness a son try and upstage his father’s doomed legacy.
  — Keyaira Boone, Essence, 29 Nov. 2021
• Few soccer players on the planet are famous enough, skillful enough, and prickly enough to upstage the World Cup.
  — Joshua Robinson, WSJ, 18 Nov. 2022
• As an adult, Franklin would upstage her older sister Erma, robbing her of her chance in the spotlight.
  — Neal Justin, Star Tribune, 19 Mar. 2021
• That trip was upstaged by the coverage of Trump’s indictment.
  — Gromer Jeffers Jr., Dallas News, 6 Apr. 2023
• Remember when Tiger Woods nearly upstaged the Iron Bowl?
  — Ben Flanagan | [e-mail], al, 15 Nov. 2019
• While Kerman is the host and thus the star of the show, a recent young guest managed to completely upstage the artist on his own social media account.
  — Melissa Locker, Time, 22 Apr. 2020
• Not one of them upstages Shakira, who’s playful or raw as each moment demands.
  — Jon Pareles, New York Times, 18 Mar. 2024
• Their owners remain hidden underneath, dry and out of sight, upstaged by their vivid canopies.
  — Christian House, CNN, 22 Feb. 2024

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upstage

2 of 2 noun

• With its couches and kitchens, its upstage stairs and stage right doors.
  — Robert Lloyd, Los Angeles Times, 1 Apr. 2021
• The upstage wall sometimes retracts to expose a grassy hillock with small trees.
  — Scott Cantrell, Dallas News, 11 Aug. 2021
• The wedding guests, on the other hand, 12 dancers planted upstage in tidy clumps, appeared to want to be anywhere but there.
  — Lauren Warnecke, chicagotribune.com, 22 Jan. 2018
• The singer-actors file out, not toward the center but to a brick-walled corner at extreme upstage left.
  — Vinson Cunningham, The New Yorker, 25 July 2022
• Things were going off without a hitch until Lil Nas X made his way to the stripper pole upstage.
  — Rebecca Alter, Vulture, 23 May 2021
• Simons’ script follows the serials, with sections from the black-and-white film shown on an upstage screen.
  — Mark Lowry, star-telegram, 9 June 2017
• But the dancing: As the company sings a gay bridal song, the Bride, far upstage on a high platform, writhes in self-destructive fury.
  — John Timpane, Philly.com, 2 Nov. 2017
• Rose’s set is built around an upstage loggia with an overhead walkway and stairs that lead down to the marketplace.
  — Jeffrey Gantz, BostonGlobe.com, 16 Mar. 2018
• And as Silky is stumbling upstage with one arm in and one arm out, Eureka is taking us home and nailing the final chorus.
  — Paul McCallion, Vulture, 19 Aug. 2021
• Media: Hartford Curant Class of 2018 students went upstage in front of the supporting crowd and signed their name on a white poster with their school logo.
  — Kaila Contreras, Houston Chronicle, 25 Apr. 2018
• Bloody cardboard tampons the size of golden retrievers hang on the upstage curtain.
  — Steve Heisler, Chicago Reader, 7 Mar. 2018
• Seiwert makes ingenious use of slits in the black upstage curtain.
  — Virginia Bock, The Mercury News, 8 May 2017
• Designer Alexander Dodge sets the tale within receding stone walls open upstage to the view of distant mountains.
  — Scott Cantrell, Dallas News, 6 Aug. 2019
• The set, with its sofa, coffee table and upstage piano is gallingly simple.
  — New York Times, 12 Nov. 2019
• The camera still rolls, recording not the jazz musicians but the white auteur threatening his Black worker, while the musicians snicker at the scene from upstage.
  — Sarah Cowan, The New York Review of Books, 10 Oct. 2020
• Shoes: Numerous pairs of shoes against the upstage wall give an early hint of how many characters each actor will inhabit.
  — Mike Fischer, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 10 Feb. 2018
• In the beginning, the dancers’ upstage placement creates three shadows against the backdrop, the darker middle shadow an overlap.
  — BostonGlobe.com, 21 Sep. 2019
• With a floor of honey brown and an upstage wall like a minimalist Kandinsky, the stage is bare at the start and filled piece by piece with chairs and long wooden tables: for reading at, for dancing on, for dying at.
  — Laura Collins-Hughes, New York Times, 8 June 2018
• But in the finale, winds far upstage were repeatedly behind Ehnes’ lickety-split tempo.
  — Scott Cantrell, Dallas News, 12 Mar. 2021
• The references to illumination are of the moon, quite literally, with a round, orangey orb rising on the upstage scrim throughout the work's 25 minutes.
  — Lauren Warnecke, chicagotribune.com, 9 Feb. 2018
• Perhaps feeling lonely far upstage, perhaps playing as if they still were padded by lots of strings, winds and brasses were often louder than necessary.
  — Scott Cantrell, Dallas News, 2 Oct. 2020
• Mirella Weingarten’s dramatic set design situates Khan on a parched, dusty hillside, rising upstage and draped ominously in lengths of rope.
  — Washington Post, 19 Nov. 2021
• The set has also been placed far upstage, suggesting Gunner’s receding tide of sanity.
  — Mike Fischer, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 25 Feb. 2018
• Instead of hydraulics in the floor that permit characters to descend into hell, the journey is made via a compartment upstage that opens and closes like a restaurant dumbwaiter.
  — Washington Post, 16 Oct. 2021
• There’s the stage with different acoustics upstage and downstage, the orchestra level seating area, under the balcony, which is an extremely deep area with a low ceiling, and the upper balcony.
  — oregonlive, 27 Sep. 2021
• But why the piano tumped up against the tree, or the four upstage telescopes, or the big gyroscopes, or, except to facilitate more hyperactivity, the trampoline?
  — Scott Cantrell, Dallas News, 11 Aug. 2021
• Unfortunately, the geography of the upstage area is sketchy, causing some blurriness in the blocking.
  — Charles McNultytheater Critic, Los Angeles Times, 7 June 2022
• So why did director Rebecca Martinez and scenic designer Daniel Meeker choose to place the set as far upstage as possible, creating a gulf of about 10-feet between the actors and the audience?
  — Lee Williams, OregonLive.com, 18 June 2017
• Additionally, Jennifer Tipton’s lighting inks the background in warmest black and subsequently bathes the dancers and their upstage dancing in a translucent bluish hue.
  — Robert Greskovic, WSJ, 19 Nov. 2018
• The Aeolian-Skinner organ installed upstage in the original Philharmonic Hall was removed in the 1976 rebuilding and the space given over to backstage amenities and offices.
  — Dallas News, 20 Oct. 2022

Last Updated: 5 Sep 2024