I’m a Grinch! I have a lot more in common with Ebenezer Scrooge than Bob Cratchit. If I were in a Japanese monster movie I’d be Christmaszilla! I exaggerate (slightly), but when Shantel announced that she wanted to do a Santa’s Village at the Reif Center, I was not enthusiastic at first.
Shantel has wanted to do a Santa’s Village at the Reif Center for a long time. She says, “Santa’s Village is a festive kick-off to the holiday season. The focus is on children and seeing the wonder and excitement in their eyes this time of year. It’s fun to let the children choose their gifts for a parent or grandparent. When I first participated in an event like this many years ago, my 4 year old son chose a gravy boat for his dad. He heard the word ‘boat’ and he had to have that for his dad.”
Santa’s Village takes over the entire Reif Center. The heart of it is in the Ives Studio Theater where we set up the Kids Shoppe. This is where Santa’s Elves help each child pick out a gift for a loved one and have it wrapped. Mom and Dad can take a quick walk through then enjoy a cup of coffee and a cookie in the lobby while they wait.
In the lobby kids can take a picture with Santa and Mrs. Claus and get a cookie and lemonade from the café. In the theater classroom children can complete a craft project then head into the Wilcox Theater where Reif Dancers will greet everyone and pose for pictures on the Nutcracker set with the kids.
The crew’s main responsibility is to turn the Ives into the North Pole, and I chose to delegate this important task to Greg and Melanie. Besides needing to set up tables for the gifts and a wrapping station they were given carte blanche to do whatever they wanted to do. They knocked it out of the park with string lights, gobos and giant inflatables.
Greg has really taken Santa’s Village to heart. He’s a big thrift store fanatic and all year long he’s been buying up more Christmas inflatables and other surprises to make this year’s village even bigger and better. What better time than an article about Santa’s Village to learn a bit more about Greg!
How did you come to work at the Reif Center?
My journey to the Reif began in early 1980. I was watching a TV show on PBS called 3-2-1 Contact because my favorite band – KISS – was going to be featured on it. During the program, they were showing various parts of the load-in for a KISS concert. I was fascinated and thought it would be cool to do that someday. A few years later I graduated high school, did a stint in the Navy, and then worked in the restaurant industry for about 20 years. I met John, the Reif Technical Director, around 2006 or so. When I found out what he did for a living, I told him that I’d love to be a roadie for a day. I got my chance in Sept 2007 when John asked if I’d like to work the Pink Floyd Experience show. That was a great show to learn the ins and outs of being the local crew. They brought their own lights, sound, video, trussing, instruments, and other equipment and hauled it all in a huge 48-foot trailer. During the load-in and load-out, the driver of the semi-truck noticed my attire – a KISS hat and KISS shirt and asked if I was a fan. I replied that I was – I joined the KISS Army back in ‘76! He told me that he had been in Los Angeles a week or two before and knew someone at the KISS warehouse who gave him a tour of it. His son is a fan and the person who gave him the tour gave him some KISS merchandise. After chatting for a while the driver went to the truck and brought back a hoodie and a travel mug for me! I had an AWESOME time bein’ a roadie for a day. Over the next couple of years, I would come up several times during the season volunteering my time to work shows and learning a lot in the process.
What are some of your most memorable shows, experiences, stories?
KISSIt! A KISS tribute band. We had to create a KISS-like stage for their show. One of the things we did was to make the lighted logo. I got to keep the logo – minus the lights – after the show. I keep it in my KISS collection at home.
Paula Poundstone. Paula usually posts a picture on her social media pages of the green room chair at every venue where she performs. One time, a few months before she was scheduled to perform at the Reif, she posted a picture of the lighted mirror in a green room. All of the bulbs except for one were burned out. I mentioned to John that we’ve already got that green room beat – all of the light bulbs in our lighted mirrors were working. Somehow, we decided to go the extra mile and decorate the green room for her stay here. We found out she had 16 cats at home. To make her feel at home, I used a cat theme (along with her favorite candy bars and some Ring Dings!) to decorate the green room. By the time her show date arrived, I had collected about 3 totes worth of cat decor. Paula loved what we did with our green room. A week after the show, we got a postcard from Paula thanking us for our great hospitality. The postcard was a picture of one of her cats. Paula appeared on our stage a couple of years later and by that time I had several more totes of cat decor to decorate the green room with. We got another postcard from Paula. Just a couple of months ago on X (Twitter), Paula responded to one of my comments on her post and said that she still uses the tea towels that were given to her from one of her visits here! Of all the artists I’ve worked with, she’s always been my favorite.
With the help of the student dancers and a couple of instructors, I was given the opportunity to choreograph a dance piece for the Reif Dance Company Show in 2019. I was working backstage for that show and at one point during one of the performances of my dance piece, I heard an audience member say “WOW!” That felt AMAZING!
Most of my work is done backstage or out of sight of the audience. But there have been a few times when I’ve been on stage. For a Reif Dance production of Aladdin, I played the Magic Carpet. Once I was asked by the director of the Grand Rapids Players production of The Music Man if I’d make a small appearance, which I did—I was one of the people who brought trouble to town. Finally, I got to be a magician’s assistant for a magic show.
What do you like about setting up for Santa’s Village?
For most of the shows and other events that we work on, the set designs are clearly defined – stage plots, pictures, etc., but every once in a while, the techs get the chance to show off their creativity. For Santa’s Village, Executive Director Shantel Dow and Marketing Director Amber Vanous had an overall vision of what they wanted each part of Santa’s Village to be and look like but didn’t know exactly what could or couldn’t be done to accomplish some of it. A couple of weeks before the event, they had a meeting with a few of us on the tech crew where they talked about Santa’s Village and walked us through each station. Between all of us, each of the stopping points in Santa’s Village except for one became clearly defined as to how it was going to be set up and the decor needed for it. The biggest stopping point and the one I became most excited about was the Ives Studio Theater transforming into a North Pole shopping area. Shantel and Amber only had a few requirements for the shopping area but other than that they basically told us to have fun with the room. That is music to my ears!
Along with some ideas brought up during our meeting, Melanie McCoy, Buzz M, and I brainstormed and came up with a plan for the room. It took us a day (or two?) to get everything set up in the Ive’s. Well, everything except for one corner of the room. Because it was empty, it looked like a huge corner to fill. We had used just about everything we could find around the Reif that looked either Christmasy or wintery to help fill the room – old candy canes from Nutcracker performances gone by, periaktoi with storefronts on them, and some Christmas lights and a tree spinner from home, but that corner still went unfilled, the day before the event. I decided to go to a few stores in town and see if I could find some sort of Christmasy giant inflatable. I got a 12-foot snowman inflatable at the 2nd store I went to, brought it to the Reif, and set it up in the corner. That completed the shopping room! With Santa’s Village being a great success, the Reif decided to do it again the following year. One of my hobbies is going to thrift stores, and garage and estate sales. Over the past year, I’ve found a dozen more inflatables for Santa’s Village!
You’re known as that KISS guy at the Reif? Any good KISS stories?
Because of working at the Reif, I was able to be on the local crew at the DECC in Duluth, MN for KISS in 2016 on their Freedom To Rock tour! Almost 40 years after first seeing 3-2-1 Contact, KISS performed on a stage that I helped put together. That’s my favorite KISS story. That story slightly beats out the story of me talkin’ to Paul at his house or the time I did a meet & greet with KISS!
Thanks for telling us more about yourself Greg! I can’t wait to see what you and Melanie come up with for Santa’s Village this year!
As for me, wish an old curmudgeon some Christmas cheer. Maybe I’ll avoid a visit from the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future and maybe my old shriveled heart will grow three times larger!
