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.
from the November 8, 2007 edition
Page 3 of 3
When growing up, Ellis didn't show any particular interest in design. As a child of the 1950s and '60s, the era of Sputnik, he gravitated toward science. The closest he came to being on stage was playing in rock bands.
He didn't get involved in theater until college, when he landed a role in "The Fantasticks." The experience doomed his plans of being a dentist, much to his parents' disappointment.
Ellis migrated to New York with a graduate degree in technical theater. In a typically practical move, he decided to pursue production management instead of acting, preferring, he says, to "work in the theater rather than in restaurant jobs" as a wannabe artist. After stints in the music business, working at Greenwich Village clubs like the Bottom Line and managing the national tour of Meat Loaf in 1977-78, he found his métier behind the curtain.
Over the years, Ellis has experienced his share of mishaps. He calls his first job as stage manager for a children's theater company his keenest failure: "I went in the wrong direction and didn't get to the show, so 3,000 kids didn't get to see Snow White Goes West."
Today, the productions are far more elaborate and the risk of misadventure more pressing. At an earlier play he supervised, for instance, stagehands ignored Ellis's advice and tried to whisk a 2,000-pound fish tank off stage during a two-minute set change. The aquarium shattered, creating a mini-tidal wave and flooding the sound system. Such problems, though, are rare, he says.
In the end, Ellis admits that spending so much money to mount a show is a big gamble. But he thinks the whole experience is something that will stay with people "forever."
The facade at the Hilton Theater's stage door has been transformed into a faux-Transylvanian castle, marked "BRAIN DEPOSITORY." Above the mail slot is stenciled: "After 5 p.m., slip brains through slot in door." Ellis is hoping his mental acuity and production skills have slipped into the theater as well "to make magic. Which is why," he adds, "live theater, happening right before your eyes, is still very, very special."
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