Page 4 / Sunday, January 2, 2011 Tallahassee Democrat / TLH

She’s the behind-the scenes wizard at Civic CenterKristin Vandenberg

has been the director of technical operations at the Civic Center since 1994. She does a job most people aren’t real-ly aware exists — she is in charge of setting up and tearing down all the equipment for the touring concerts, theatrical productions and sporting events.

Vandenberg grew up in the Tallahassee arts community. Her father, Fredric Vorce, was the state supervi-sor of music education for the Florida Depart-ment of Education. Her mother, Norma Vorce, has always been active in local theater, and at age 83 still per-forms onstage at Young Actors Theatre.

Vandenberg herself began performing at the age of 7 with the Florida State Opera,

and by the time she got to college, she had appeared in more than 30 local productions. After earning a BFA in lighting design from FSU, she worked in regional summer stock and was the master electrician for a nation-al tour of “Babes in Toyland.” She was also the company manager for a national tour of a comedy troupe from Moscow.

“It was me, a trans-lator and nine Russian clowns,” she remem-bers. “By the end of the tour, I was so long-ing to hear the English language.”

Vandenberg was preparing to move to Minneapolis, where the touring company was based, when the position opened up at the Civic Center. She had worked there as a stagehand when she was a student, and the previous technical director recommended her for the job.

Setting up for Broadway

Six times a year, the Civic Center hosts national touring pro-ductions as part of its Broadway Series. On Thursday, follow-ing several inaugural events for incoming Gov. Rick Scott, Van-denberg and her crew prepare for “The Color Purple,” which plays Jan. 7.

Transforming the

basketball arena into a stage worthy of a tour-ing Broadway show is a gigantic undertak-ing. A 15-person crew spends 10 hours set-ting up the grid system that creates a network of moving pipes over the stage area. Riggers first climb 90 feet into the air and drop ropes down to pull up motors; then they raise mas-sive trusses on which will hang hundreds of pieces of lighting and sound equipment.

In order to turn the 13,000-seat arena into a 2,500-seat theater, the crew hangs 68-foot-tall curtains that cre-ate the proscenium and

the back wall. They set up portable plat-forms that create the stage and the orches-tra pit. And they trans-form the basketball team rooms into dress-ing rooms, bringing in mirrors and makeup lights.

The crew for “The Color Purple” travels with four 50-foot semi trucks full of scenery, costumes, props, and lighting and sound equipment. The trucks will arrive early on the morning of the show, and the combined tour-ing and local crew will spend the next eight hours unloading the trucks and setting up

for the performance. The Civic Center will

provide 45 local stage-hands to complete the set-up. Of these, about half will actually work during the perfor-mance, functioning as deckhands, spotlight operators and dressers.

The crew will load out immediately after the performance, and Vandenberg estimates that they should be able to pack everything up in four hours and head off to their next city. Once the trucks are gone, the local crew still has to spend another three hours to take down the grid sys-tem.

“It’s about a 20-hour day on a Broadway show,” she says. “It’s not unusual for our crew to work from 7:30 a.m. to about 4 a.m.”

A family affair

Vandenberg main-tains a work force of 150 to 200 local free-lancers. One of the stagehands she hired turned out to be her future husband, Scott Vandenberg, who is now the lighting super-visor for the School of Theatre at FSU.

They have four chil-dren — Miranda, 11,

By Randi AtwoodSPECIAL TO THE DEMOCRAT

Kristin Vandenberg came from an artistic Tallahassee family, acted as a child and went on to earn a BFA in lighting design from FSU, before taking the job as director of technical operations at the Civic Center.

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TLH / Tallahassee Democrat Sunday, January 2, 2011 / Page 5

Trevor, 11, Tiffany, 9, and Corin, 7 — all of whom attend the School of Arts and Sci-ences. The kids seem to have inherited the family love of perform-ing — three of them have acted in shows at Quincy Music Theatre. Their interest in the-ater has even gotten Vandenberg back on stage.

“I’m in the mother roles now, apparently,” she laughs. “I was Mrs. Paroo in ‘The Music Man,’ the mother in ‘Meet Me in St. Louis,’ and Elsa, Captain von Trapp’s spurned fian-cée, in ‘The Sound of Music.’ ”

“The Sound of Music” was particularly mean-ingful, since Vanden-berg’s daughters played Brigitta and Marta in the production, and her mother, sister and niece all played nuns.

“Having the chance

to do it as a family was really exciting,” she says. “You don’t usually get three generations of nuns in one family at the same time.”

Next on her list is to be able to work on a production with her

husband. “He would like to

design the lights in Quincy sometime,” she says. “Now that the kids are a little older, we’re hoping to have more chances to do things together.”

A 15-person crew sets up a grid system of pipes to transform the Civic Center into a stage for Broadway productions.

STAGEFrom Page 4 / TLH

Kristin Vandenberg met her future husband, Scott, on the set at the Civic Center. They now have four children.

How cool is a color wheel?

Each week COCA (with the help of our local teachers) will chal-lenge you with ques-tions illustrating what local students learn in their arts classes.

Are You Smarter Than a Second Grade Art Student?

This week’s questions are courtesy of Margie Grussing, art teacher at Astoria Park Elementa-ry School.

1. What is a color wheel?

2. What are the pri-mary colors and the sec-ondary colors?

3. Can you name the cool colors and the warm colors?

Do you know the answers to these ques-tions? E-mail them to cultural@cocanet.org. The first person to submit a correct set of answers will “get a gold star” in next week’s TLH. Check back here next Sunday for the answers.

Answers to last week’s third grade music questions from Sabal Palm Elemen-tary teacher Yessenia Gomez:

1. Can you name the musical style that is associated with South-ern Spain?

Answer: Flamenco is a centuries-old style of music and dance that originated in southern Spain. Gypsy, Byzan-tine, Moorish, Latin American and Cuban elements have influ-enced the development of flamenco. Many com-ponents, such as song, dance, guitar, casta-nets, and rhythmic clap-ping are blended into rhythms that are often

improvised.2. Can you name one

of the most well-known modern flamenco gui-tarists?

Answer: There are many musicians who are working in this par-ticular style, but one of the most well-known is Paco de Lucia. A con-temporary Spanish composer and flamen-co guitarist, de Lucia is world-renowned and an outspoken advocate for the modern flamenco style.

3. You can often hear a rapid guitar strum-ming in flamenco music. What is this called?

Answer: “Rasgueado” means “strummed” in Spanish. A musician usually uses more than one finger to strum a guitar, but rasgueado is executed using only one finger, or even the thumb. This allows gui-tarists to strum more quickly because they are able to use multi-ple digits in quick suc-cession, creating fast, rhythmically precise patterns.

By Amanda Karioth ThompsonSPECIAL TO THE DEMOCRAT

SEND IN IDEASVisit COCA’s web-

sites at www.cocanet.org and www.more-thanyouthought.com. Send suggestions for artist profiles, news items, story ideas or fun facts to COCA at cultural@cocanet.org.

Old bones on display

Al BehrmAn/The Associated PressGlenn Storrs, right, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Cincinnati museum Center, and Stephanie lowe look at a vertebrae fossil from the tail of a long-necked titanosaur, on display at the museum in Cincinnati. The fossil is part of an exhibit making its debut at the museum.