Radio City Music Hall

I would like to second that, once again Rob Endres has brought us behind the scenes and shared the magic that was/is Radio City.
I never gave much thought to the massive undertaking it was to produce the shows, so much hard work and dedication is quite remarkable really. Thanks for sharing Rob!

I was at the Hall for four years or so of the movie/stage show policy, and remember show change nights well. There are two rehearsal halls above the theatre where the cast practiced. The large hall has the three elevator lines and the turntable radius painted on the floor, and is the same length as the stage. The Rockettes practiced their routines there. There was also a complete Peter Clark built model of the stage in the production office, which at one point even had moving elevators, so minature scenery could be tried out. The picture sheet (screen) had a heavy backing applied to it which also covered the center channel movie speaker which flies out with the sheet. When stereo came in, openings were cut in the backing to make flaps which could be lowered to accomodate the extra channel speakers which rode in on top of the first border of lights. When the flaps were down, the first entrance blacks were closed to keep light and noise from leaking out into the audience. Thus the stage crew could work during the film changing drops and scenery. The scenery was hung on alternate pipes for each production, so the new show could be hung while the current one was still running. The Rockettes had their own dormitory on the 50th street side of the building, and would stay there overnignt on change nights. Lighting call (which also included film effect set up and rehearsal) was at 4 A.M., with full cast due at 6 A.M. for rehearsal until the house opened for the first movie before 10. Since we also screened each of the two prints of the new film before it opened, this meant being there after the last show until 2 A.M. or so for a couple of nights close to the change. In addition, the whole production crew was expected to be there until the last stage show on opening day was completed. In the instance of the first 70mm roadshow presentataions we did when I was there we also had to reinstall overhauled 70mm projectors and a new xenon lamp on one machine, so I just slept in my chair at my desk until the 4 A.M. lighting call even though I was living just five blocks north of the Hall at the time. As frantic as those times were, the load-ins and load-outs after the movie/stage policy ended were even more hectic. I can remember walking into the theatre at 8 A.M. after the first MTV Awards show had been done the night before, and finding stage hands sleeping in the aisles in the orchestra, since they had another large show coming in that day. The cast and crew were able to pull off the changes overnight because everyone’s life pretty much revolved around the theatre and they were used to it. Some of that crew is still there today, and in some cases their grandkids are now working on the crew too. There’s a level of devotion to that theatre that I suspect may be unmatched anywhere else in the country.

Would like to hear stories from some of the backstage crew who did all that work to ready for the next days morning show. Also, where did the people who were in the shows rehearse? Was there a replica of the RCMH stage downstairs?

I was only 4 years old when these great classics played the Hall in 1959, but Bill’s amazingly detailed memories are the next best thing to having been there too. As for the programs, my printer sure is getting a workout.

On second thought, why not post it today, in honor of having seen it there exactly forty-six years ago last night? Here’s my Program from the week beginning 30 July, 1959, acquired on 5 August, 1959:

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That summer my friends cheated on me by sneaking out to see “The Nun’s Story” at RCMH while I was at work. Whether or not they thought I’d care to see Audrey Hepburn in a wimple, I was determined to catch that film on the screen where it had premiered. Plus, the stage show had boasted of a wacky finale that depicted the burning of Nome, Alaska, with real fire. So, on the final day of its run, I left work, returned home, ate a sullen supper, and then told my mom I was going off to see some Doris Day romp at the RKO Dyker. [Editor’s note: never trust a liar; Doris Day’s “It Happened to Jane” actually played at Loew’s Alpine that week; the co-feature was “Hey Boy! Hey Girl!” with Louis Prima and Keely Smith.] I then sneaked on to the BMT and arrived at RCMH just as the orchestra was rising for the very last performance of its collegiate overture.

I felt I owed it to myself and to my job to do that. This job, which I held for ten weeks each summer during my last two years of high school and first three years of college, kept me running around the city as a foot-messenger bearing documents and receiving signatures in the days before FAX and e-mail attachments made such work practically obsolete. My employer, a ship-building firm (now also practically obsolete, at least in the USA), entertained corporate clients at B’way shows and Yankees baseball games. When it became apparent to my boss that I knew more about the former than anyone in the shipyard, he dispatched me every day, often twice a day, and sometimes three or more times a day, to Times Square to procure tickets. Whenever I behaved badly, he dispatched me instead to Yankee Stadium, which I really didn’t mind because I could always read a book during the long subway ride. The upshot was that I spent a fair amount of time in the summers of ‘58-’62 scouring the theater district, chatting up box office managers, and doping out the best way to get the best seats for the hits of the time. Though it was only a movie, “Gigi” was one of those hits on reserved seats in ’58 at the Royale. And though it was only a movie which would soon wind up at the RKO Dyker [Editor’s note: really there, yes], “The Nun’s Story” in ’59 stood at the top of my must-see list.

It was the first and only time that I attended a last-night performance at RCMH. Part of the thrill was wondering how in the world the stagehands might strike the old sets and mount the new ones before the doors re-opened the next morning. Though I could imagine that backstage activity was always frenetic, I could only guess how scores of workers disassembled flats lining the choral stairways and then assembled their replacements, with set designers, stage managers, lighting crew, and other experts barking orders as the time flew by. If it took me hours to set up one Christmas tree each December, how could RCMH staff set up scores between midnight and dawn? And in the case of this show’s flaming finale, who would rush the smoldering timbers of Nome off the stage to make way for the spectacular “Serenade to the Stars” announced for the next day? Whew, it gave me a headache to think of it.

As it happened, the stage show proceeded luxe, calm, and voluptuous, with no hint of haste or who-gives-a-damn-at-this-point. And the film unfolded stately and serene on the fabulous screen, with no sound of hammers or hoists or drilling backstage. And when the contour curtain descended silently on the lone angelus bell at the movie’s end, the houselights came up and the organ came out to disperse the still nearly-full house with solemn exit music. It was a class act in serenity. Finding myself outside in the sultry August night on 50 Street, I saw that the display cases had been changed and the marquee retitled. I walked around the corner to 51 Street and found it cordoned off, ablaze in floodlight as stageworkers hauled scenery out the side doors and onto trucks, waving onwards other trucks packed with scenery ready to be unloaded. It was a beehive of activity. It all seemed unreal when I returned less than forty-five hours later to see “North by Northwest.” Meanwhile, I reported to my mom that I had found the Doris Day romp so good that I stayed to see the entire double feature twice, well past midnight.

Thanks, Bill. Of all the Radio City programs I’d want to see, that one for “North by Northwest” might be my #1 choice. I’m really glad you saved it for all these 46 years, and thanks too for sharing your memories of the night you saw it. You don’t happen to have the program for “The Nun’s Story” laying around the house, do you?

That still leads to the debate, and that may be forever lasting.

Thanks Gustavelifting.

It must have been Harry and Walter on July 4 in 1976. “1776” played the Music Hall in 1972, as the Christmas show.

Vito;
Sometimes you have to wait for the page to refresh itself with your post. Maybe, like me, you got a little impatient when it took too long.

Wow what great memories Rob and Ron have stired up for me.
Rob I can only imagine how exciting it must have been to walk that catwalk, whew, that had to be fun!. I ran “Zhivago a few times and always wanted to try and time the curtains and lights to that great opening scene in act two. wherever I had manual control of the house and stage lights, it was a kick to gradually lower the lights at different intervels during the overture, gradually going to black. I would put "clicks” on the print by splicing a one sprocket wide piece of film over the frame line emulsion to celluloid, then when I heard the click I would lower the lights to the next desired level.
Of course after about the second or third week of a 52 week engagement, we did not need the clicks anymore, everyone could operate the lights by listining to the music. The lightining had to be timed to a point in the overture when the music changed, it was easy with say a “South Pacific” where you could lower them to the change of songs. A lot of planning went into the roadshow presentations, we didn’t just run the movie, we created a presentation, and like the time you tried to do “The Zhivago” it was a heck of a lot of fun was it not? People noticed, just ask Ron.

Vito, I believe they took the pipe for the Golds/Silvers traveller out for our “Snow White” presentation since they needed to hang a tree leaf piece in that position. While I think of the traveller as being “the Golds” I think the control board has the switching marked as the “Silvers” so both colors must have been used at one time or other. The curtain was acoustically transparent, so for the roadshows we did with Entre'act music we didn’t bring the contour in because it acted as a high frequency filter as it came down. The traveller was motor operated from the same panel as the contour, and could travel at four speeds. I had seen “Dr. Zhivago” in 70mm at the Palace in Chicago, and was impressed that after the intermission music as the picture started (with the train carrying Zhivago going through a tunnel) a point of light appeared on the screen and got bigger as the train approached the mouth of the tunnel. The stagehand in Chicago opened the curtain just ahead of the growing spot of light up until the train exited the tunnel and you saw the curtain a moment or so before it cleared the screen. I mentioned that to our house people, and when we ran “Zhivago” the light board and stage manager and control board operator tried the various traveller speeds and timing until they were able to recreate the effect. I think they had some fun doing it, as it wasn’t just the usual open/close cycle the traveller was used for. By the way, there was also a light set in between the contour and the proscenium at the top of the arch which mirrored the footlights below. Apparently it didn’t work all that well since I never saw it used although it was there when I started at the Hall, and I saw it from the catwalk above the proscenium. It also was removed to make way to hang other pieces.

But Vito you are speaking of a time when having a naked screen in front of you was as unseemly as having a completely naked individual on stage in front of you.
We have gone 180 degrees.
(yet ironically people in general are more physically prudish and uncomfortable with themselves than ever.)