Idled Broadway Electrician Talks Shop

Stagehands John Joseph Kelly, foreground left, and Sean Fedigan, foreground right, chat as they picket Saturday Nov. 24, 2007 outside the Neil Simon Theatre in New York where Kelly is a stagehand for "Hairspray". Fedigan is a stagehand for "Jersey Boys" at the August Wilson Theatre across the street. (AP Photo/Tina Fineberg) (Tina Fineberg - AP)

NEW YORK -- Seventeen years ago, it was John Kelly's job as a "followspot" operator to illuminate Cathy Rigby as she flew around the stage in "Peter Pan," the musical about the boy who refused to grow up.

Kelly ran a second followspot, too, creating the character of Tinkerbell, portrayed by only a beam of light. So what happened when, in the story, the incorrigible Tink almost dies and nearly blinks away? "That was me flashing the light," Kelly said, explaining one of the other duties of his first job on Broadway.

These days, Kelly is not operating any lights at all _ blinking or otherwise.

His current Broadway address, the Neil Simon Theatre, home of "Hairspray," is dark. And Kelly, an electrician, stands outside on West 52nd Street, where he and the theater's other stagehands, members of Local 1 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, walk in silent picketing.

Since Nov. 10, stagehands, who also include scenery, prop and sound people, have been on strike in a dispute with the League of American Theatres and Producers. Kelly and some 350 of his fellow stagehands have been on the line ever since.

"I wear many hats in this scenario," he said in discussing the strike during a recent interview at the union's theater-district headquarters.

Kelly is also on the union negotiating committee with the league, so he has been in the middle of the labor wrangling since last summer. Talks were to resume Sunday after a week of no contact, which has meant shut theaters for more than two dozen plays and musicals during what is usually one of the most lucrative times of the year for Broadway.

The 52-year-old Kelly, a genial, bearded man who looks a decade younger, takes a quiet pride in his work. The man can talk lighting, all kinds of lighting, an important component of what makes live theater so unique _ and labor intensive. Take those followspot operators, for example.

"They work very hard because typically they are on for most all of the show," Kelly said of the men and women who keep the spotlight on a specific performer. "They have to follow an actor on stage and, if there is an understudy on or a change in that evening's performance, the job changes. Even the same actor is slightly different night to night."

Kelly's official job title at the Simon is deck electrician, responsible for the show's electrical gear on stage.

A typical workday for Kelly _ one that is centered on an 8 p.m. performance _ starts at 6:30 p.m. This is what's known as the continuity hour when Kelly checks the lighting equipment, particularly the show's 52 moving lights.

"We step through a series of checkout cues for my babies, my robot girls (which is what Kelly calls his roving lights)," Kelly said. "I am responsible for keeping them running.