Next up was British Rock Royalty with Brody Dolyniuk. This is only one of Brody’s many shows and includes the music of The Who, Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Queen and Led Zeppelin. Brody has been at our venue many times, and his production value is high as Brody cares a lot about every little aspect of the show and is involved in everything. He is a perfectionist. There’s always a good light and laser show. Brody and his band are great musicians, and they play the songs of all these bands better than anyone else you’re likely to see in concert other than the actual bands themselves. So if you see his name on an advertisement anywhere- go see the show. You are guaranteed not to be disappointed.

The last show of the weekend was a matinee with Frankie Avalon. Frankie is another performer who has visited many times. He is a great guy. His band includes two of his sons, Jr. who plays drums and Tony who this time played bass, but also sometimes plays guitar. The sound check went late due to the band members getting stuck in bad traffic here in Los Angeles. Frankie was not even able to check with the band, and then, only sound checked alone fifteen minutes before the doors opened! But Frankie was easy on us as usual and only took about three minutes to get done.

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But today I want to talk about the heart of what makes a theater: its crew—and specifically, some of the new young people.

If you’ve read my book, you may remember a chapter about a new kid I called Ducky. That was eight years ago—and wow, has he become an important part of our organization since then. Right now, he is technically my supervisor. Crazy.

As amazing as his rise has been—from a new person with almost no knowledge of the business to where he is today—it isn’t unique, just highly unusual.

We now have a new batch of “kids” (they’re really in their twenties, but they’re kids to me). Some are outstanding.

Let’s talk about two of them.

First, there’s Jason.

Jason is a bright young guy who wants to work as an audio engineer, and as you can see, he’s already moving toward that goal. As it turns out, he’s also one of the more gifted new hires—although he doesn’t know it, even if you were to tell him.

I’ve also taught him how to run our video rig, which he learned faster than anyone else I’ve trained. He’ll need to work on his confidence, but he absolutely has the potential to thrive in this line of work.

Right now, my top pick to skyrocket to success is a young woman named Sarah. She is, without question, the brightest, most organized, and most driven new technician I’ve seen since Ducky showed up on our doorstep.

I keep thinking she’s been here longer, but she says it’s only been about nine months.

She excels at nearly every task we give her—and then some. Ducky had even started teaching her the art of mixing monitors until our Executive Director put the kibosh on that effort. Which brings me to the “troubles” section of this post.

One of the reasons we need to teach a “new kid” how to run the monitor board— one of the most technical and responsible jobs in a venue, is because we no longer have anyone doing that job in-house. We are currently relying on contractors.

Our monitor engineer/audio assistant, Kerry, stepped down from mixing. He simply didn’t need the stress anymore. The place burned him out. After mixing hundreds—literally hundreds, possibly thousands—of shows, along with many other duties, he’d had enough. I empathize completely, as I stepped away from mixing myself years ago. Not gonna mix again.

We were all hoping Ducky would step into that role, since he had been mixing frequently as the second monitor engineer and had become extremely good at it.

Good luck keeping track of this story!

Last year my ex-roomie Jack retired. He was our front of house engineer. (Main sound guy for the civilians out there.)  He was replaced by everyone’s first choice: Jon, an incredibly talented and knowledgeable engineer.

Then my longtime friend, business partner, and other ex-roommate Tom—our Operations Manager and Technical Director—also retired. After almost a year, he was finally replaced by Steve, one of our smartest and best technicians, who had been working in the city’s IT department. (Steve had also been a monitor engineer here before leaving to IT.) He was fired without cause after only a few months.

Then Paula—our Stage Crew Supervisor and my favorite boss ever (and everyone else’s too)—was promoted to the front office. A big step up in pay and prestige. While this was a huge loss for the backstage crew, we were genuinely happy for her. (The smart move would have been to keep her backstage and pay her executive wages.)

After a loooooong time, Paula was replaced by Brenda, a valued tech, especially on the lighting crew. Brenda lasted only a few months before being let go in the middle of a workday.

Meanwhile, Rogan—our Master Carpenter/Rigger and union president—finally retired after years of talking about it. His assistant, Alma, had already left more than a year earlier and was never replaced. Her position remains open.

Ducky, realizing the audio assistant job was unlikely to open anytime soon (based on the painfully long delays in filling other positions), applied for assistant to the Operations Coordinator. Both Ducky and a wonderful, talented young technician named Tori were hired. Everyone was happy—both are incredible people and excellent techs.

Then our Operations Coordinator, James, decided he’d had enough of the bad management above him and quit. His job was integral to our operation, especially since he had already been covering the duties of the Stage Crew Supervisor, including scheduling the crew.

Which meant Ducky and Tori were suddenly doing all the work of the Operations Coordinator, the Stage Crew Supervisor, and their assistants.

So now they’re my supervisors.

Circling back to Sarah: our Executive Director has now decided that since Ducky holds a coordinator position, he can’t touch the soundboard (because union blah blah blah). Which means he can’t teach Sarah—or Jason—how to run monitors.

P.S. Ducky is also on the union board. Bet you didn’t see that coming.

Simple, right?

The Titanic has hit the iceberg, and our Executive Director is trying to turn the ship around for another pass.

What’s holding this place together now is a handful of longtime crew members and the courage and dedication of a few young technicians who have stepped up to enormous challenges under chaotic and deeply flawed management.

So kudos to the “kids.”

My hope is to work another couple of years, helping these young crew members carry this place forward for decades to come and live the dream—just as my friends and I did for so many years.

Fingers crossed.

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But tonight my story is not about the bands and crews so much as it is a personal story. If you read my book Stagehand: A Backstage Pass to my Life Stories, you would have read about my time spent with my friends at the mall, whom I like to refer to as ‘The Old Guy’s Club”. A group of older Vietnam war veterans. One of them who I consider one of my best buddies, Cecil, is a fifty year martial arts champion and Sensei.

When I told him that I was working with the Temptations he said to me, “Really? Otis was one of my students and a good friend! Make sure to say that Sensei says hello.” (For those who don’t know Otis Williams is the last surviving original,  and founding member of the Temptations)

So of course, since I love Cecil, when Otis arrived, I went to the dressing room and gave him Cecil’s greeting. He was very happy to hear from Cecil and asked, “Do you have his number?” Which I do. So I called Cecil and put him on speaker phone. Cecil had forgotten all about our conversation and was very surprised! I ended up giving Otis Cecil‘s contact information so they could catch up later, as it has been a few years since they have talked to each other. It warms my heart to have been able to hook up two old time friends after them being out of contact for so long. (It’s not easy to get a hold of famous performers, so it may have been hard for Cecil to contact Otis.)

I’ll include some photos below.

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Home for the Holidays has been an annual concert at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts for thirty years, although the show used to have another name. This year the other performers included; singer and pianist, Oleta Adams, singer and actor, Ruben Studdard and singer-songwriter and actress, Haley Reinhart.

I always love when Peabo visits because after thirty years of working with him during the Christmas season he has become a friend and I always love our conversations backstage. I wrote more about this in my upcoming book, Stagehand, A Backstage Pass to my Life Stories, which is available on Amazon.com.

Oleta Adams also announced her retirement at tonight’s show. I will miss her performances and also her kindness to me and our crew. I did have the honor to accompany her off the stage for the last time tonight.

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