The technical wizard behind Broadway's new extravaganza, Young Frankenstein
Sam Ellis oversees the creation of smoke, fog, lightning, thunder, and 3 million volts of electricity.
By Carol Strickland | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitorfrom the November 8, 2007 edition
Page 1 of 3
New York - To label him a jack-of-all-trades is a colossal understatement. He's the kind of omnicompetent guy you wish were in charge of the New Orleans levee system. "The Swiss Army knife, they call me," admits Sam Ellis, describing his job as the wizard behind the curtain of "The New Mel Brooks Musical Young Frankenstein," opening on Broadway Nov. 8.
The "Gothic opera," as Mr. Brooks has called it, has the same creative team that won a record 12 Tony awards for the 2001 musical "The Producers." Anticipation runs high, which makes Mr. Ellis's job as technical supervisor even tougher.
Giving a backstage tour shortly before the play opened for previews, Ellis, in a button-down shirt, looks more like an erudite roadie than a scruffy techie. Mr. Organization is the picture of calm, belying the 15-hour workdays he's put in for six months.
"Tech tables" laden with laptops and more buttons and switches than the space shuttle cover virtually every seat in the Hilton Theater. Countless electrical cables crisscross the floor like an explosion at a snake farm. The whine of power saws fills the air as carpenters encase an elevator intended to pop a "ghost" on and off stage and build a locked closet to house explosives for special effects.
Scenery components are everywhere: Sets such as a hermit's cabin hang overhead as electricians tinker with the flickering "fire" in the massive fireplace in Dr. Frankenstein's Transylvanian castle. Props and sets stand ready to create the illusion of a laboratory, a middle-European village, or an Art Deco steamship.
As technical supervisor of Broadway plays, Ellis is part "maître d', part general contractor, part babysitter, and part accountant," according to his boss, Neil Mazzell, chief executive officer of Hudson Theatrical Associates. Jared Snyder, an actor who's known Ellis since 1970 when they both worked at the Bottom Line nightclub, then later on a national tour with the singer Meat Loaf, calls Ellis "unperturbable."
Mr. Snyder adds, "With sanity and serenity, he keeps a staggering amount of information in his head. I've known him through a gazillion different projects and whatever the question is, the answer is: 'Go ask Sam.' "
• • •
RSS feed
