Radio City Music Hall

Actually crew at Radio City is extremely talented and competent. The Local #1 members have been there through (now) up to three generations, and in many cases grow up, marry, and have children who in turn grow up and join the crew there. I was in awe of both their ability and their dedication to the house. People don’t realize how dangerous any stage is. I remember the crew talking about a stagehand that was killed in a fatal fall at the Palace Theatre during the run of a legit musical. Stages with elevators up the ante. Even in the days of the movie stage show policy, I remember hearing about a dancer who got a toe cut off at the Hall, and if the story isn’t apocryphal, lost a lawsuit because he had been warned not to stand that close to the elevator while waiting to go on. That wouldn’t happen with OSHA today. Indeed, Leon Leonidoff had a staircase onstage with the Rockettes standing on it collapse during a rehearsal, scattering Rockettes all over the stage while he yelled at them to get up and go on with the rehearsal. That story made the national wire services and I read about it while still in Illinois.
As I mentioned above, the super spectacular award shows raised the ante. There you have additional crew to supplement the house crew, and an enormous amount of material being moved into the theatre under tight time constraints. The stage elevators are used to move the material into storage spaces both in the wings and on the two lower levels. In years past a routine developed because the format was unchanging. With the concerts and other types of shows, there is a house crew working with a road crew, and no time to develop familiarity with some of the hazards of working on a stage with four moving elevators. A roadie once claimed that a religious broadcaster in the Midwest (no—I have no idea who) who had an elevator stage and cut a choir boy in half in an accident. Well maybe — but I also remember Martyn (?) Greene, a Gilbert & Sullivan performer who lost a leg in an elevator move in Japan. IATSE has initiated a series of safety programs for its members that are in place even in my home local in Illinois which handles arena shows that are bigger than Radio City’s. Remember the shows are incredibly more complex than they used to be. Its probably a tribute to those in charge at the Hall (and certainly to the crew) that there aren’t more serious accidents.

REndres – thanks again for all of your comments re: the technical requirements needed to stage events. I’ve learned an incredible amount of information from your posts.

Mr. Leonidoff, by reading your description, I can see it in my mind. It gives me goose bumps. To everyone one else, if you never saw this, you really missed the real RCMH. Buy the way, I wonder why the conductor does not use the lighted baton anymore? They haven’t used it for years.

OK so you are talking about the Leonidoff Nativity which started the stage portion of the show.
It began beautifully with the orchestra rising from below and the chimes playing the first notes of Silent Night with the lights in the arches turning a deep blue in the darkeness of the house. The chorus in their peaasant garb would appear on the choral steps and sing Silent Night. The curtain would rise depicting a night sky and an Angel would appear and sing Oh Holy Night. The choristers would descend to the stage staring in wonder at her. They would then join her at the end at which point she would disappear and the star of Bethlehem would appear and travel across the sky. The chorus would exit following and the orchestra would start a fanfare intruction to Oh Come all Ye Faithful. The minute the carol itself would start the last of the chorus would have left the stage and the march to Bethlehem would begin. At the end when the last person left the stage the sky would turn transparent revealing all the crowd kneeling before the manger and then would rise as the magi entered bearing there gifts. They then would kneel as the curtain covering interior of the manger would become transparent and rise revealing Mary, Joseph and the baby. These final moments would be accompanied by the music you are citing at which point the magi would raise their gifts in homage, the orchestra would swell along with chorus, thousands of light bulbs would flash and the Music Hall curtain would descend.
I think there might have been times when the curtain would go back up for a few moments to reveal again the tableaux in it’s quiet stillness. I’m not a hundred percent sure though.
Then the orchestra would rise to it’s full height and play Sleigh Ride while the sets were being changed(I always think of the old Christmas shows when I hear it during the holidays)
and then would then descend and the curtain would go up on the secular portion of the show.

DavidM: I gather the original fire curtain is still in place and in use. Cutting it up to get it out of the building would probably create more of an evnviornmental issue than leaving it.
Re: the Doncho — the story is that Japan gave that drop to the City of New York for the ‘64 World’s Fair Exhibition in a pavillion which featured a show produced by — Leon Leonidoff. He specified the size, knowing that when the fair was over, there was only one place in New York that could handle a drop that size. You guessed it — that place was the Hall. (Leon was pretty wily!) I don’t know whether its still in the flies or not. It is so heavy that it is tied to two pipes, which is valuable line set space. (At least it used to be before the video wall came into place.) I think there was some talk of moving it to Weehauken warehouse, but as with the fire curtain, getting it out of the building without damage would have been a major challenge.

On another note — one of the passenger elevators may have been a place to store deceased audience members, but I remember Fred Kellers telling me about at least one body that was stored in his very tiny office at the back of the orchestra, and which was shared with his secretary. He said he had to step over it until the amubulance arrived. Perhaps that episode led to the later storage on the elevator.

Some info for “tolover”. Last time I checked, there were over 600 dead notes on the organ. Most of these are to be fixed before the concert. Re: the fireworks from the 40’s, I remember seeing a color photo of them in a 1951 popular machinecs mag. with a full page story on how they were made. I was at the hall in the early 60’s and almost jumped out of the chair when I saw them being used on stage. I only remember that it was a year or two before the Worlds Fair opened. In fact when I went to this past Christmas show I was questioned if I could give a non-bias review after the show. When I told them how many Christmas shows I’ve been to and have performed on the Great Stage they excepted me. After the show I went down and was escorted into a booth and was asked many questions re: this new show as compaired to older shows and I know I was asked questions to see if I was really paying attention (Believe me I was!). When they asked me about the new firewords part I told them that because it came out at you and the tech. involved it was better than the originial (they looked at me like I was from Mars or something, They didn’t know that there were fireworks used there before. So I explained it to them. I also told them that I was disapointed that the orchestra didn’t go down on the orchestra lift and come back out on the rear of the stage (BIG MISTAKE). Also I did not like the 12 days of christmas number (It is too long.). Then I told them to spend some money and get the guts back into the organ. I ended with they should go back and look at the ending for the original Christmas Show. With the organ, orchestra and chorus all going up the chord ending on the 7th, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house and they havn’t had an ending so moving as that was yet. For anyone in the know I was #92.

REndres: I’m curious. Was the fire curtain refurbished as part of the 1999 Restoration? What material is it made of these days?

REndres: Thanks for reminder that the fire curtain was used for the 50th Anniversary show. I saw “Encore” many times. When I worked there, I did see the fire curtain flown in and out a few times. It raised and lowered at such a slow pace. Who wouldn’t think it was part of the show? I never had the opportunity to see a fire drop; I wish I had. Every time I visit the Hall, I look at the top of the proscenium to see it.

Thanks also for the “briefcase” story. I recall another story about the fourth passenger elevator, the one to the far right. Several people told me this was used as the “death car”. If a patron would suffer a fatality while the Hall was open, the body would be kept in there on a stretcher until an ambulance arrived.

I remember the Archives room as well. There was so much stored in that room, even my voice. The first time I went in there was to make a copy of the audio casette with my introduction of the Christmas Show. The archives exist today, although everything has been moved to the MSG Penn Plaza offices.

Leon: The Cherry Blossom Doncho curtain was first used in “Follies ‘64”, the show that accompanied “The Unsinkable Molly Brown”. It is mentioned in the program for that show. I imagine it still exists to this day. It may still hang in the fly space, but I do not know.

A website like the one Leon mentions above would be take a tremendous effort, one that I would be happy to assist in if the opportunity arose.

There is kind of a filmed record of what was staged at the Hall; the 1983 TV Movie, “Legs”. Many scenes were filmed at the Hall and it features excerpts from a few Rockette dances, most memorably(for me) the “Dancing in Diamonds” number. Gwen Verdon is featured in a role sort of based on Violet Holmes, who took over as Director of the Rockettes following Russell Markert’s retirement. Occasionally, you could find a VHS copy of the movie on Ebay.

Creating the website envisioned above would take an enormous amount of effort, since the archives (when still in the Hall) filled a room under the stage with filing cabinets and storage space from floor to what was probably a 12' ceiling (I’m 6'4" and had to climb up a tall ladder to get to some of the film footage that was stored there.)
One of the disappointments I had was failing to return Leon’s 16mm footage to him after he left the Hall. He wrote an extremely kind and complimentary letter to me saying that he enjoyed working with me more than any other projectionist (we didn’t have the chance to work together long enough in all probability for him to get annoyed with me!) I looked through the film footage which was stored behind the screen in Preview A, but couldn’t find what he was looking for (not realizing at the time he was talking about 16mm film).
A few years later for the 50th Anniversary show, I found the case containing his footage. I sent it out to the west coast to be included in a montage of stage shows and historical footage, asking that the footage be put back together when returned. Instead, they sent it back in a jumble of edited pieces used to make the montage. I would never have the time to reassemble them properly. That footage may still be in the archives, although it was shot by Leon with available light on relatively slow 16mm reversal stock, so the images are pretty grainy.

Vito: If you think the fire curtain is impressive as it came in at the end of the day, you ought to see a “fire drop” which is truly awesome! The rule is that NOTHING is ever to sit on or be wired across the fire curtain line. There are brads in the stage floor to stake out its position when dropped. At one point there was a sign referring to the curtain as DavidM does above as being made of the material which dare not speak its name in this day and age. By the sign there was a rope and a knife, which could be used to cut the rope and put the curtain into free-fall. That curtain is in two sections, since the proscenium is 60' high at the top, so the sections have to fit in the fly space above the stage. Thus you have two pieces of heavy material 30'+ by 100'+. As recently as this week they did a fire drop, which releases the curtain just as if the ropes had been cut. It comes in with a roar that you can hear before you actually see it emerge at the top of the proscenium, and comes crashing toward the deck. At about 12' above the deck, plungers hit hydraulic stops that slows it to a pace similar to that which you see when it is lowered at night. After the test it is raised, but you can hear fluid dripping in the hydraulic cylinders for minutes afterward. The stage is cleared before a drop, and crew members and stage managers stand on either side of the line to make sure no one is near the drop area. Several times I was allowed to stand on the pit elevator to watch the drop, and that’s really about as close as I wanted to be. (The story — probably apocryphal — was that someone once left a briefcase on the drop line and it was crushed as the curtain landed.) It’s quite a piece, and DavidM, it really was part of the 50th Anniversary Show in 1982, when it was lowered as the audience came in, and we projected the 50th Anniversary Logo on it from the booth.

Thank you David M. for the alert to the Time magazine article, I did find the piece with a nice black and white picture of the fireworks at the end of the item in a bound copy in our library. Sorry I never got to see the fireworks used at any of my attendings in the 1950’s.

I guess I am the only one who if I go to the Hall and there’s not a movie and a stage show the place seems kind of empty even if there is a sold out audience.
David you were lucky going there during that period. It was still regularly playing good Hollywood films that one wanted to see. It was in ‘69 that the Hall started regularly showing duds with a rare good one.

PS: A Yahoo search for Leon Leonidoff led me to a 1949 article in Time Magazine about the 1949 Independence Day stage show. Here’s the link:

View link

Does anyone of out insiders have any behind the scenes info on what is going on for tonight Tony broadcast?

To answer the question posed about the many shows I have attended at the Hall. I started going regularly in the early 50s until leaving NY in 1972. I believe I saw every show during that time frame which computes to about 20 years at about 9-10 shows a year making it somewhere in the range of 175-200 movies and stage shows.
I don’t remember ever going back to see any one show a second time and to pick a favorite would be difficult. As I have mentioned before, the shows in those days always changed on a Thursday and we would arrive at about 6pm in time to beat the price change and sit as close to the stage as possible for the stage show. My favorite seat was the one directly behind the control booth. After seeing the first stage show we rushed up to the 3rd mezzanine to sit directly under the booth for the movie. Then often we would return to the orchestra level to watch the stage show a second time. We would spend about four hours at the hall
For me the best part of any show, after the Rockettes and ballet, was the orchestra. I loved hearing the musicians tuning up as the pit rised up to stage level. For those who remember the orchestra could be heard tuning up as part of the start of the show. Sometimes we would get an extra treat and watch the orchestra rise to stage level and then roll to the back of the stage, this would usually lead to the Rockettes coming up on the stage elevator vacated by the orchestra. That was fun.
The wonderful steam curtain (do they ever use that anymore) was exciting, the entire front of the stage would fill with a curtain of steam with a marvelous rushing sound, just breathtaking.
So for me it was not so much the quality of the stage show but the technical aspects I found fascinating, and of course, the marvelous orchestra and organ.
I recall once, when we saw the last showing of the movie, there was this huge thing that began to descend upon the stage. It lowered and then rose up again. Well, I had to know what the heck that was and asked a manager as we were leaving to explain. I learned it was the stage fire curtain which they were required by the fire department to test at the end of every day.
So favorite movie or stage show? Hard to say, but favorite thing to go to see in New York was the new show at Radio city. The Roxy shows were grand to be sure as was the Paramount, but entertainment nothing beat the experience of going to Radio City Music Hall.