Magic Is What They Do and Music Is How They Do It

By Alina Mata

Photography by Justin Negard & Miranda Schloa

When Janis Joplin and her band Full Tilt Boogie played in Port Chester in August of 1970, she wanted to grab a bite to eat before the show. While Joplin enjoyed her meal at the next-door restaurant, she took in the Port Chester scenery, watching the cars, including a Mercedes-Benz, drive by. “She wrote that Mercedes-Benz song on the side of a cocktail napkin, walked on to The Capitol Theatre stage later that night, and performed it,” says Emily Schmalholz, the special events manager at The Capitol, where Joplin first played her hit song “Mercedes Benz.”

That’s just one of many examples of how some of the long-standing music venues in our area have helped shape history. But who makes those shows and the legendary tales happen? What really goes into the planning, hospitality and production at a music venue? Here’s a glimpse.

Nick Digiaimo, technical director, Paramount Hudson Valley Theater.

What it takes to get the job done

“We always feel like we are in a sitcom behind the scenes,” Schmalholz jokes. “Today, we are in season 12, episode four.”

Unlike performers and guests, the eyes and ears of music venues can’t just waltz through the doors an hour before the show begins. For example, Eliot Byron, the backstage crew chief for The Capitol, gets to work as early as 7 a.m. some mornings to set up for an evening performance. While his schedule doesn’t follow a typical 9-5, some days are shorter than others. “On a day like today with a local band, we’re in around two in the afternoon, and we’ll probably be heading out the door at about midnight.”

The shortest nights at The Capitol Theatre are the comedy shows. “Most shows only have one microphone, a stool and a glass of water. We’re in and out pretty quickly,” Byron explains. “But every show is different. It’s like a big puzzle. We come in, and there’s this basic plot on a piece of paper that describes what the night is supposed to look like. But then we get in, and we have to lay it all out and put the puzzle pieces together to make the show happen.”

Though open all year, Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts’ busiest time is June-August, when outdoor performances draw in large crowds. “I work with a team to bring in a lighting system and a sound system, and we hire seasonal crew,” says Tim Coffey, concert production manager. “We have a lot of technical crew who just work during the summer.” This summer, Caramoor’s opening night presented Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, performed by the Orchestra of St. Luke’s. “For a show like that, we have about 80 folks in a chorus, in addition to the full orchestra of 40 to 50. So we must actively find ways to create space on our stage.”

Meanwhile, those with more of an office job, like executive director Bjorn Olsson of Tarrytown Music Hall (built in 1885), spend their time writing contracts, planning future shows and managing special programs. “It’s positive stress, restoring this historic, beautiful old theater and getting to do the programs that we do.” One of those programs is the Music Hall Academy, which enrolls hundreds of children every season and offers instrumental, vocal, theatrical and dance programs for kids of all ages. “Technically we all have 40-hour workweeks, but I don’t think it’s been that little at any time,” Olsson adds. “It’s cyclical, and it varies from eight, 10, and 12 hours a day.”

At the Paramount Hudson Valley Theater, technical director Nick Digiaimo arrives two to three hours before the band so he and his crew can set the stage with lights and backline. Stella, Digiaimo’s German Shepherd-Belgian Malinois, comes to work with him every day and is the most beloved member of the team. “She hangs out on the stage with the bands during sound check…we joke that she’s working on the ‘ruff mix.’” And as the front-of-house sound engineer, Digiaimo controls and adjusts the band’s sound as the audience hears it. “Eighty percent of what I do in my job is problem-solving on the spot,” he explains. Digiaimo has to make quick decisions based on the amount of time he has to fix them. “I actually had a monitor blow up in the middle of a show, and I had to run down, unhook it, and throw it outside since it was literally on fire. I had five seconds to react, or the fire alarm would’ve gone off, and we would have had to evacuate the theater.”

Bjorn Olsson, executive director, Tarrytown Music Hall.

Blue M&Ms

While you’ve probably heard the stories about demanding divas with extensive riders, our local venues tell a different tale. “In my 11 years here, there was never an artist who was too big of a diva and didn’t respect our staff and audience,” says Coffey. “I have seen some funny riders, though. There was one group who wanted 10 different types of chocolate bars. They didn’t give us specific brands, so we were given the opportunity to be creative with our chocolate bar purchases. And a lot of our American Roots artists like to have a beer after their set; many request local craft beers to get a flavor for the area.”

According to our experts, the legend of the blue M&Ms has a practical backstory. “Almost everybody has heard that story,” says Olsson. “I can’t even remember who that was supposed to be, but when they actually interviewed the tour manager who wrote that rider, he said, ‘The only reason I put that in was because I wanted to make sure that somebody actually read the rider.’ And when they asked him what was up with the blue M&Ms, he would say, ‘Oh, don’t worry about that. I just want to see if you actually read the whole thing.’”

But there are always surprises in this industry, especially when working with human beings. “I sometimes feel like I’m a Monday morning quarterback or a stage psychologist,” says Byron, referring to his experiences at The Capitol. “These people are living on the road. They’re traveling in a car or a bus, and when they roll in in the morning, the first thing we have to figure out is what kind of day they’re going to have. Did they have a really bad night? Was the drive really horrible? Did they load out last night in a snowstorm? Some people come in grumpy and surly and arrogant, and we have to immediately decide if we’re going to be able to kill them with kindness or if we just need to stay out of their way and let them figure it out.”

And the experiences can be similar when it comes to an artist’s crew. Byron says his team encounters “everything from high school students or farmhands” to true professionals. And sometimes an experienced traveling crew has had the opposite experience and is not used to working with skilled professionals. “We are a very experienced union stagehand crew, and not knowing us, they’ll come in and talk down to us in a very condescending manner,” he explains. “They’re trying to explain things to us that we’re well-versed in. I have to diffuse those types of situations early on, or tensions start to rise.”

Tim Coffey, concert production manager, Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts.

Treat the people like rockstars and the rockstars like people

“We’re fans, but we’re professional about it,” says Byron, who says one of the perks of his job is seeing one of his favorite bands, Phish, perform at The Capitol. “We’re not autograph seekers or looking for selfies. We try to treat the people like rock stars and the rock stars like people.”

As one of the six percent of American theaters built before 1900, the Tarrytown Music Hall has hosted its fair share of stars over the years. Composer Antonín Dvořák, known for the “New World Symphony,” graced Tarrytown’s stage along with Presidents Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.

Over the decades, Caramoor has hosted a myriad of GRAMMY Award-winning artists. With this summer marking Caramoor’s 80th anniversary, audiences can see Yo-Yo Ma, the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra, Lyle Lovett and many more.

As for The Capitol Theater, it would be more efficient to name the rock stars that haven’t performed there. Artists like Pink Floyd, Talking Heads, Blondie, David Bowie and B.B. King all had tour dates at The Capitol back in the venue’s heyday (the 1970s and early 1980s). Not to mention the Grateful Dead, who performed there so many times that a nearby bar, Garcia’s, was later opened in honor of frontman Jerry Garcia. Some of The Dead’s most legendary  shows took place at The Cap, and you can still hear them today, says Schmalholz. “If you listen to the Sirius XM Grateful Dead radio channel, you’ll hear them say things like, ‘Live in ​​1971 from The Capitol Theater in Port Chester.’”

Some bands, like The Wailers, travel with such a large team that they have their own front-of-house engineers who handle all the mixing. “When they came to The Paramount, I got to just sit back and oversee, and I could enjoy the show,” Digiaimo remembers. “It was the first show with our new soundboard, and he did a great job.”

A comfortable and relaxed artist makes for a good show. And while most venues don’t provide foot rubs or aromatherapy for their performers, having a welcoming environment is important. Coffey says he “thinks of Caramoor as a second home.” When corresponding with the performers and/or their managers, Coffey’s goal is to make sure they also feel at home, starting with a map of the grounds. “I was 30 minutes late to my very first interview 11 years ago because I had no clue where to go,” Coffey laughs. Even with signs and maps everywhere, people still regularly get lost on the vast Caramoor property, so having detailed instructions can prevent artists from showing up late and agitated.

With music technology constantly upgrading, backstage crews need to adapt with it to operate smoothly. “When I started out, I asked a lot of questions, almost to a fault,” Byron reflects. “I try to surround myself with people that know way more than me,” says Digiaimo. His personal mantra is, “Don’t be the smartest person in the room.”

Phantoms of the stage

Live music isn’t just for the living, and our historic music venues often come with their own ghosts. While none of the people we interviewed believe in ghosts, they all say their colleagues or visiting performers and crews have shared some tales. “We’ve had promoters tell us that when the show is done and they turn off all the lights at the end of the night, they can see the glow of a cigarette up in the balcony,” says Olsson of Tarrytown Music Hall’s phantoms. They’ve also reported hearing “vocal exercises in the dressing rooms when nobody is there,” but some would say that’s a given when the venue is older than the Statue of Liberty.

The Paramount staff say they  occasionally have unusual experiences that are sometimes difficult to explain. According to Digiaimo, one of his colleagues was recently washing her hands in the projection room bathroom when the door handle mysteriously turned and opened. “I checked the door and handle to see if I could figure out the cause,” he explains. “I concluded there was no way that door could have opened on its own; it had to be turned by force.”

Digiaimo himself also had an unusual experience one afternoon. “I was setting up for a show where we needed the piano,” he recalls. “I was fooling around, playing the piano, and at a certain point one of the seats dropped in the theater; I was the only one there.” He says he doesn’t know if that indicated a standing ovation, a ghost walking out in response to his piano skills, or if “the seat was on the cusp of falling, and the wind or the HVAC turned on and it blew it down.”

Recently, TikTok content creator Santa Paranormal reached out to The Capitol Theatre hoping to livestream some ghost hunts. The theater agreed, and he has brought his spirit box to check in on any spirits who have chosen The Cap as their home in the afterlife. Santa has live-streamed what he says are messages related to the Grateful Dead. And the Long Island Medium, Theresa Caputo, will be at The Capitol in July; she’s also hoping to communicate with the Grateful Dead’s deceased members.

Until his ghost offers some new wisdom, Jerry Garcia’s famous quote best sums up these behind-the-scenes crews: “Magic is what we do, music is how we do it.”

This article was published in the July/August 2025 edition of Connect to Northern Westchester.