Hi, Is this sentence correct? Should I use "was or were" and why please? Say 'was'. There seems to be nothing hypothetical or unlikely about this. The speaker doesn't sound like he has serious doubts that the curtain was going to go up.
Tom Cruise arrived just in time, before the curtain was/were to go up.
i think that "was" is the right form to be used in this case because was represents the singular form of past tense and were the plural. The curtain is certainly singular.