Musicals like “Crazy for You,” the Gershwin musical recently performed by the Herricks Community Players, need high-energy actors, but their energy would be wasted without the intense effort by the backstage crew, who create the sets and man the lights to hit the right notes of theatrical illusion.
They appeared in dim lights between scenes, striking and setting the stage in frequent changes – in a minimal amount of time. It’s a team effort that required precise coordination for a large set that called for 10 or 12 crew members each night.
In “Crazy for You” the person in charge of making that happen was set construction manager and stage manager Peter Triolo.
It was Triolo’s vision of a realistic set that prompted the creation of a 1,200-pound moving wall – it has 16 wheels – that provides the illusion of a bar, cafe and second floor hotel in a remote Nevada town that figures in the screwball plot of the piece. The wall defined the stage space when it was used, pushing the illusion of a backwater town, just the sort of element that fit the scale Triolo had in mind.
“It needed the reality of big things,” Triolo said.
Triolo, a 38-year resident of Herricks, has time more time to contemplate big things on stage since he retired from the printing business a year ago.
The show’s stage manager, Margo Bayroff, said the crew had a fairly uniform reaction when they saw a rendering of what Triolo was conceiving.
“We were cursing Peter,” Bayroff said, smiling.
As scenes in the play switch between exteriors and interiors of the building – and between Nevada and New York – the Great Wall had to be moved around. While the same basic crew was there some nights, not everyone could be there every night and volunteers were recruited, given quick instructions and paired up with a crew member who already knew the drill.
They needed 10 to 12 crew members every night, according to Bayroff, who added, “that’s hard because it’s hard to have volunteers every night.”
The scene changes in “Crazy for You” were so complex that for the first time in the four years she’s been stage managing at Herricks, there was a crew captain assigned to each side of the stage to direct things backstage. Roslyn resident Bayroff had done some acting in school, but had never stage-managed before she stepped into the role.
“I had no experience as a stage manager. But they had me step right in,” she said, explaining that she likes her role because “you’re involved in every aspect of the production, as stage manager, you’re in control.”
Bayroff goes beyond that role, also organizing auditions before the heavy work starts.
On “Crazy for You,” she got a big assist from production assistant Sarah Valensky, who has performed a variety of essential tasks, like the other members of the community players.
“I did everything they wanted me to do,” she said, which has included hlping to build sets and “another set of eyes” for Choreographer Penny Payne.
Valensky had seen the group’s production of “Guys and Dolls” four years ago and kept coming back.
When the Brooklyn middle school where she teaches couldn’t afford to put on a musical this year, Valensky called Herricks Community Players Producer Carol Hayes and was invited to join in.
For Triolo, designing sets is the culmination of a career that has included directing off Broadway and at Herricks, as well as acting in his younger years.
“I’ve done it all. I enjoy building a set, calling the show and seeing it come to life,” Triolo said.
He’s lost track of just how many shows he’s done at Herricks over the years, but appreciate the efforts of each individual working on the crew.
“There’s not a person back there you can do without,” he said. “We were blessed with a couple of people who’ve been here every night.”
He said “Anything Goes,” a Cole Porter show Herricks put on in 1999, was a more difficult set to build than the one for “Crazy for You.” But then, the “Anything Goes” set didn’t have to be moved around like this one did – creating as much of a problem offstage as when it was on.
“The hardest part of the big step piece is where you have to hide them,” Triolo said.
Another, smaller functional set piece – a wooden Rolls Royce – had to be sturdy enough for Michael Chimenti, who played romantic lead Bobby Child, to dance on while he sang in an early scene. In a clever revival of a great sight gag, a troupe of show girls suddenly started emerging from the car, all appearing to come out of the vehicle’s downstage door. It didn’t really roll, but the car sported headlights and wheels made from garden separators and Styrofoam.
But the illusion would not have been complete for a period piece such as “Crazy for You” without costumes that were strictly 1930s vintage.
That’s where Eleanor Leslie and her daughter Shelley, enter the picture as the company’s costume mavens.
Eleanor said she came down to paint scenery for a show 15 years ago, gravitated into costumes, and never left.
The greatest satisfaction she and her daughter derive from their work on the shows is seeing the actors look just right when they hit the spotlights.
“Getting the right costume on the person and making something feel comfortable in it,” Shelley, a Mineola resident, said is what she strives to achieve.
They cruise thrift shops and yard sales in the summer dig up suitable duds for costumes in the Herricks plays. Since the objective is to raise money for the seniors programs of the community center, doing things as efficiently as possible is a paramount consideration.
“But the thing is the actors and that they feel in the period,” said the elder Leslie, who lives in Albertson and works part-time setting up greeting card displays.
Ono the technical side of things, Herricks has a few professionals at the controls, notably at the sound board which Rich Gibbons mans. His daytime job is producing content for radio shock jock Howard Stern’s channels on Sirius Radio. A long association with Herricks actor Warren Schein producing voice-over work led him to Herricks when Schein told him the company was seeking a sound designer several years ago. Gibbons said he likes the contrast between doing live sound and his digital radio gig.
“I enjoy the live theater part of it. It’s lot of work,” Gibbons said. “I’ve always been a fan of live performance. It’s really fun.”
“Crazy for You” was particularly challenging, Gibbons said, because he was monitoring 15 wireless microphones on singers in the company, as well as four mikes set at the footlights on the stage to pick up chorus members who weren’t miced – with the pit orchestra strains inevitably mixing in. And there is the inevitable problem of wireless mikes malfunctioning and needing immediate replacement offstage.
“The truth is every time we do these musicals, it’s challenging. I’ve got an 18-piece orchestra to deal with,” he said. “It’s a fine line between making sure everybody’s heard and the system not sounding good.”
He treads a fine line in mixing the sound for the Landmark Theater in Port Washington as well.
As the orchestra warmed up for the final performance on a Sunday afternoon a few weeks ago, the crew seemed poised to deal with whatever might happen next.
