Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 2025 - 54

IN THE WINGS News and updates from USITT
First, I would like to thank Joel for not
hiring me to work at Kliegl Brothers in 1975.
Let me explain. I was the technical director
at the University of North Carolina and
had been working with a minicomputer
to control stage lighting. To put things in
context, this was almost 10 years before
IBM introduced the PC. Joel was in Chapel
Hill for a conference, and I invited him to my
office for a demonstration. Not long after,
we sat together in the lobby of the Waldorf
Astoria Hotel during what must have been
an AETA (American Educational Theatre
Association) convention and he offered
me the job of director of R and D at Kliegl.
I did what anyone would have done in my
situation, I went back to Chapel Hill, quit
my job, and starting making plans to move
to New York. Before the school year ended,
I got a call from Joel that there had been a
family emergency in the Kliegl family and
all hiring was off!
I scrambled around and finally found
a job at a small lighting manufacturer in
Hillsboro, Oregon, a suburb of Portland. I
moved my wife and two small children to
Portland, arriving in early July. Electronics
Diversified Inc. (EDI) had built a prototype
from my plans, but it didn't drive dimmers.
Two days after I arrived in Portland and
two weeks before I was scheduled to
start working at EDI, the president of EDI
knocked on my door and informed me that
EDI had a contract for a Broadway show,
he didn't know the name, the dimmers had
been delivered, but the console they were
designing was not going to be ready. So, he
informed me they were going to ship the
prototype of my project they had built. We
spent day and night building the rest of the
electronics, and three days later I was on
a plane to NY with the prototype in cargo.
Long story short, if it wasn't for Joel not
hiring me, the LS/8 and Chorus Line would
have been a completely different story.
So, now the next big thank you to Joel.
About six months after Chorus Line opened,
I got a call from Mike Connell saying Joel
wanted to have dinner. And guess what? He
hired me again. Fortunately, I was settled in
Portland, and Joel arranged for me to open
a Kliegl offce in Portland.
Basically everything I know about this
business I learned from Joel. They are all great
pieces of information I used the rest of my life.
Here are a couple that stand out in my mind.
Joel's rule for doing your expenses:
* How much money do you have in
your wallet before you leave home?
* How much money do you have in
your wallet when you get home?
* Spread the dfference out over the
number of days you traveled.
Another Joel rule for expenses:
* The lowest-ranking person at the
table picks up the check.
* Because his expense report is
obviously approved by someone else
at the table.
And probably my favorite:
* When ordering a brisket sandwich
is a NY deli: " Please spread a little
smaltz from the pan on the bread. "
Thanks again for everything, Dr. Joel.
-Gordon Pearlman
After grad school, I had one interview
for a theatre faculty position and decided
that campus politics weren't for me, so
thanks to my thesis adviser, I had two
interviews: one at a theatre supply company
and the other at Kliegl with Joel. He
offered me $30/week more than my other
prospect, and I think that I was dumb
enough to show how the figure impressed
me by widening my eyes. Kliegl seemed
the perfect place to earn a living while I was
conquering off Broadway.
54 | THEATRE DESIGN & TECHNOLOGY | ISSUE 4, 2024
http://historicalemporium.com
Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 2025

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 2025
