With this issue, Nook Schoenfeld is retiring as a seven-year editor of PLSN. At the same time, he’s flipped the off switch in his lighting career. During the pandemic, this veteran LD has gained a devoted following on facebook with his Old Man Musings column. Every Friday Schoenfeld regales readers with road stories, while oftentimes naming those “partners in crime” who can laugh about the tales years later. Turning the tables on this occasion, Designer Watch asked lighting designers to share their own musings about working with Nook Schoenfeld. As Nook would advise in his column intros, “Grab a cup of coffee and sit back. This one is a long one.”
“Pirate-Like Characters”
Michael Keller: Nook and I first crossed paths during the mid ’80s while working for Morpheus Lights. It was back in the days when there was no OSHA, sleep was optional, and a great time was had by all. We were on tour with Lionel Richie’s “All Night Long” tour and it lived up to its name. The Morpheus crew consisted of Nook, Eric “Ernie” Wagner, Bill Strom and myself. The lighting designer was Peter Morse, who designed and ran the show on a Celco Gold while I ran the Panaspot’s Performance computer. We were definitely a group of “pirate like” characters who, on the most part, have remained in the business and remained lifelong friends. Nook, you and I shared a lot of great times. I just wish I could remember them. Some of them were legendary.
“The Hammock Was Next to His Dimmers”
John Rossi: Years ago I met Nook on a short tour when I was the touring designer for The Beach Boys. The lighting rig he produced for our shows was very well done. He climbed and focused, did all the patching and even made margaritas at the stage right dimmer area. Strawberry if I recall, although this was a long time ago.
Years later I had the same position for John Fogerty and ended up at a festival where Nook was the house LD. He was very organized doing all the advance work with me and then when I arrived on show day, I found him in a hammock beneath the stage. He was reading a thick book with a label indicating it came from his hometown library.
Although I’ve shared lots of moments with Nook, on and off the road, these details seem to sum him up in my mind: He has mad skills (climbing, patching, tech-ing, designing, and bartending); He knows how to prioritize (the hammock was next to his dimmers, and had a headset); He is well read (most great writers are); He’s resourceful (you know, it was from the library).I also happen to know unequivocally that Nook is an exceptional father. Good luck, Nook! You will always be one of a kind!
“Madonna Calling From the Stage”
Harry F. Sangmeister: Nook and I toured together for 14 months in the early 90’s with Paul Simon. As the Vari-Lite operator, he made every day easy and enjoyable. He and Mike Ledesma were an Abbott and Costello act who kept everyone’s spirits up. But the thing I remember most happened when I ran into him in Australia years later. We were coming to film a Madonna show that he was on, and I can still hear her now calling from the stage over the mic, “I need my little Nooky.” Enjoyed the time, Nook, now enjoy this time yourself. You have more than earned it.
“He Would Prepare Surprises For Me”
Jon Pollak: Nook and I met in 1993 while preparing for the latest and greatest Lenny Kravitz “Universal Love Tour.” The place was at Ronan Wilson’s Meteorlites on Elstree Way in the English town of Borehamwood. That was where Nook introduced me to the Wholehog1 console, which had a crossfader that looked like a Hurst Shifter —a large T-handled, 4 speed gear shift with a hand imprint on the shift lever. We instantly agreed that he would operate that which ran the 8 Intellabeams and I would run the 90 channel Avo that controlled the ColorFaders and the 120 PARS in the big round circle that we stole from Iron Maiden.
He would prepare surprises for me and unleash them during those shows to see if I would collapse in a heap of hysterical laughter. I usually would. Especially when he cut a mirror ball in half and crafted them into two hats. He then placed Rosie [Jim Greenawalt] and Dave [can’t remember his last name] on either side of the stage in a blackout and on cue when I called on the spots, what did I see? Only those two rotating in place while the beams trembled feebly all over the stage. Our Star was disappointed to hear it was only a one-time gag as well.
There was another time when Blind Lemon was our opening act and Nook kept deleting instruments from their LD Mike Stallone’s programming. It wasn’t till Mike was down to about a dozen lights that they stopped messing with him. Mike actually called Avolites to complain about the software dropping lights out of cues and adding others. We refused to have a desk repair tech come out from London and accused him of operator error.
Nook, Rosie, Mike, Dave and I also invented a revolving door selection service that consisted of would be candidates for what would affectionately be called Rosie’s Rangers. These were willing young girls who would obviously willingly capitulate to our post show desires. The audition consisted of having them dance on an uplight riser next to dimmer world during a song and if they were wild enough we issued them custom passes that allowed them Backstage, FOH and on the Crew buses.
Due to current mores and modern acceptability statutes I won’t say anything more about that. Nook, you and I had such fun as we worked together on all the Lenny tours up to and including 2002. I still talk out loud to myself — a classic Nook signature — when programming.
“He Saw Something in Me”
Jason Bullock: I met Nook in 1996/97 when I worked at Morpheus Lights. He found me at age 19 climbing truss as a system engineer — those days when you had to actually fix equipment (LOL). He saw something in me and put me behind a early Wholehog II to help him focus. Eighteen months later, he started at Lighting Technologies in Atlanta, and he brought me there to program and work with a lot of his friends such as Mike Ledesma and Nick Sholem. I programmed my first tour and operated with Nook on 311. He taught me the benefits of busking, proper programming, getting it done, and how to use 80 stagehands at once. Over the course of many years we did a ton of projects together. The first tour I became a full blown LD for was a later 311 tour that Nook put me on, that I then ran for the better part of a decade. Nook, if it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be who I am today.
“Gained Points in My Book”
Kevin Cauley: Long time ago, Nook was programming on a one-off radio show. I was the Light & Sound Design moving light tech. One of the movers kept resetting, so I swapped it for him, same thing with the replacement. I suspected some errant reset command made its way into the stack. But I was new in the business and certainly not going to ask him to look. By the time I sluggishly made it out to FOH, Nook had already found the glitch and began to apologize for making me swap out the first fixture. I was impressed by his humility and the way he took responsibility instead of blaming a random cable or node. Nook, you’ve gained points in my book from that day on.
“The Oracle”
Joel Reiff: I always call Nook ’The Oracle.’ His product reviews in PLSN are doctrine for me; if he liked the unit, I knew I’d like it. Whenever I had a question about anything or anyone, I would call Nook. When I was out with Peter Frampton, I needed to find someone to cover for me for a few weeks. I called Nook and asked if he knew someone, probably a young LD looking for some experience. He gave me a name, but it didn’t vet well. I called him back and asked for another name. He said, “How about me? I’ll do it.” Or something to that effect. There was silence on the line for a few seconds while my brain tried to re-boot. I’ve covered a bunch of shows for Nook. I wouldn’t think of asking the other way around; the man is just too busy, and over the budget we had available. I mumbled something that may have resembled the English language. He said, “Sure, why not. Sounds like fun.” So Nook went out and ran the show for me. I remember telling Peter and his management about my ‘replacement.’ They asked, “Is he good?” I said, “No, he’s better.”
Nook gave me one of my best jobs. He designed Jack Johnson’s tour in 2004, just when the artist was breaking huge. ‘In Between Dreams’ had just come out. He designed a classy set and lighting for them and hired me to run the show. I had to learn the Maxxyz console. We flew into Upstaging for a week. He basically showed how to work the desk, and then proceeded to shoot cues at me as we went through the songs. Whenever I couldn’t figure how to do it, he’d revert to teacher mode and show me. Then it was back to designer mode and cueing. It was a crash course, but a blast. Our first shows were in Australia. He stuck around to watch the opening concert, in front of some 30,000 people. Of course, the console crashed right in the middle of my first show. We’d set up a back-up, so I calmly went to the back of my console, switched over to the second console, and calmly returned to continue running the show. He just observed. After the show, he said that the way I handled the situation left him confident. Nook, you gave me a lot of leeway with that show, which was one of the best lighting experiences of my career.
“Stop! Just Stop!”
Ignacio Rosenberg: Nook was the least flashy of all my mentors in the US. We met way back when I went to visit Upstaging in Mundelein, IL and he was programming a Kid Rock show. It was all of a five-minute conversation. Months later I was hired in the shop and as a newly arrived foreigner I was clearly lost, full of Latin bravado, and eager to continue growing. I remember helping Nook load a case with a previz computer, probably Martin ShowDesigner at that time, it slipping off my hands and landing with a solid thud and him nonchalantly saying, “Ah, that’s okay buddy, it’s just expensive.”
Nook, for whatever reason, decided I was going to be a pet project. The man fought for me to have time to go get my Social Security card, to let me load in local gigs (I couldn’t travel with the visa I was on) and eventually gave me my first turn running a console on a US tour: Taste Of Chaos. TOC was a winter festival full of angry bands and swarming teenagers, and we all took turns running bands on a trusty old Wholehog II and wing. One day we went to FOH where one of our newer crew members was running some opening act and looked at the console to see every single stack was on. The lights were going berserk on stage; just a smorgasbord of cues, colors, gobos and effects. It was uncanny to watch. I will never forget how Nook grabbed the girl at the console by the shoulders, spun her around on her heels to face him and yelled, “Stop! Just stop it! Turn half of it off!” as she looked totally dismayed. To this day it’s one of my favorite things to quote.
Years later Nook and I ended up being roommates behind Upstaging’s new shop. I showed up after a tour and had completely forgotten Nook had a son, so I was surprised to see my future room full of kid’s toys. I know I’m a lot younger than him but it seemed like an odd hint? Eventually I met Hunter, saw him pour a very expensive bottle of absinthe down the drain because it was colored like his bubble bath soap and putting a salami slice into the DVD player to see if it worked (it did not, ever again). I’m eternally proud to have seen that kid grow into the man he became. We had late nights talking about how to prepare US income tax returns, we talked about the early days of touring, about doing gigs back in Argentina, and we became solid friends.
We did quite a few gigs together, I remember having to catch sod that was getting thrown at FOH in an amphitheater and chucking it back to the audience. After all was said and done, Nook and I took different paths, his to PLSN and mine as a freelancer and eventually a designer at Lightswitch. We still stay in touch, and as I move to a new house with my wife it seems like an eternity ago that this man decided to give an Argentine kid a chance. He is certainly one of a handful of people that have been instrumental in me making it to where I am. His willingness to open his heart and mind to teach others is to this day the reason I volunteer a ton of time teaching in local schools and colleges. Nook, it’s about time for you to “Stop! Just stop!” and enjoy your life.
“Great Friends”
Mike Swinford: I worked with Nook probably around 1998 when I was designing a show for the NBA at the theater at Madison Square Garden. Nook was working with a hot new act Sugar Ray. I let him do his thing on the console we were sharing and we got on great. We’ve been friends ever since.
“Holding Court in the Bus”
David Davidian: Nook was the LD for Peter Frampton while I was out there as production manager. He was a joy to work with and I have fond memories of him holding court in the bus with all the crew people. We did a show at the Hollywood Bowl and Nook, you took our small rig and added the house lighting and made that place come to life for a beautiful show.
“On Phil Collins”
Tellson James: I worked with Nook on a Phil Collins tour many years ago. I don’t remember too much about it, although I think he was the conventional lighting crew boss at the time. What I do remember, is what a really nice guy Nook is. Sending my best regards, Nook. I wish you well.
“Given a Chance at the Big Show”
Tony Caporale: Nook was instrumental in helping me gain important ground in the business. My favorite memories with him weren’t necessarily my advancement in the business but the tough love I needed to grow. When Richard Cadena was editor of PLSN he took me under his wing and introduced me to Nook. At that time Nook was partners with Michael Ledesma in Visual Ventures and at that time they were looking for an LD to take care of a Latino act named Marco Antonio Solis that Mike was designing. It was my big break into arenas and programming the whole show by myself. That break did not come without its hard knocks for me. I made rookie mistakes, completely messing up the tracking for my fixture positions. The first show was a wreck, the designers were pissed, management was pissed, because I had made greenhorn mistakes in my programming.
However, the moral of this story is that I was given a chance at the big show and I was given a chance to rectify my mistakes. Because, if I didn’t, I would be gone. We all need to be thankful for the people who gave us a chance in this business but we need to be even more grateful for the ones who tell us how to fix our mistakes. If you see a talent that cares enough to be the best that they can possibly be, you know that they will fix it and move forward. I’d like to think Nook believed that about me. He never handed me anything I didn’t deserve. Nook, through your guidance, I worked to gain the avenues I earned.
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