Lincoln East Rotary got a chance to go backstage at the Lied Center for Performing Arts on Wednesday, March 29th. Mark Moore, is the Associate Director of Even and facility Service at the Lied. Mark told us that the Lied is 33 years old. Mark started out with the Lied and was them at the beginning 37 years ago. He left for nine years and did something else and about five years ago he came back to work at the Lied.
Mark said that in his 15 years he has seen many artists come and go through the back door of the Lied. The back stage of the Lied is the largest in the United States. He said that the physical layout of the building makes it easy to unload everything and not have the truckers keep boxes that the props come in for the performances. If you look at the Fathom of the Opera, they had the space to keep everything backstage and when it came time to pack everything up, it did take 37 union workers, who did get overtime pay only 20 hours to get things ready for the trucks. It was one-way traffic and it made it easy to load those trucks.
The backstage at the Lied has dressing rooms that can handle 135 performers. Each dressing room has its own private bathroom with either a shower or tub. Many of the performers make their own arrangements for housing while performing, but if the Lied needs to they will get rooms and do some negotiating to get a good deal. If you would want tickets, Mark, suggested that you go online at Liedcenter.org because they handle only tickets for the Lincoln Lied Center. They have found that their performers are very happy with the backstage because of all the room.
Mark told us that occasionally they will have to order a special meal for the performer(s) because they cannot eat certain foods, or they might need certain items. The performers like staying downtown because there lots of things to do when they are not performing. This keeps them happy. There are times they might need to use the Johnny Carson Theater.
The stage floor is quite interesting – it is not all concrete. It has two layers of plywood and six layers of wood. There are times when the dancers might bring in their own floor over the stage to make it softer to dance on. Therefore, that floor may have many layers. The stage itself is quite large.
After the show “Hamilton” there will some renovations done to the bathrooms, and the stage will get new flooring. The 2023 Broadway shows that will be coming to the Lied have already been announced and single tickets will be available after April 12th.
Another improvement coming will be for those that hearing impaired. They will be making some technology changes to help improve the sound for those wearing hearing aids.
Mark shared some stories about his experiences at the Lied. One was when he was working as a Prop Man, another being a page turner during a music performance, and even some stories about what has happen to him backstage.