Adirondack Studios (ADKS), a company that provides creative solutions for designers, artists, producers, and owners in the themed entertainment industry, continues its five-decade story in this second excerpt from Fifty Years of Making a Scene: Adirondack Studios 1975-2025, as it celebrates its 50th anniversary this year.
Fifty Years of Making a Scene: Adirondack Studios 1975-2025 is written by Bob Barnett with a foreword by Michael Blau. It is edited by Michael Blau, Tom Lloyd, Mike Marko and Clara Rice. The book will be published in limited release later this year.
When we last left co-founders Tom Lloyd, Christopher Detmer and Walter Blake, they had formally combined their creative talents by establishing Adirondack Scenic, Inc. While their roots were in theatre, they were about to grow into an entirely new territory of entertainment…
In 1976, show producer Roger Hess had secured the rights to create a touring show featuring Looney Tunes cartoon characters. The Bugs Bunny Follies hit the road, touring arenas and theaters throughout the U.S and Canada, and entertaining families and children of all ages.
The cast was dressed in oversized, lightweight costumes that were danceable, while their dialogue was pre-recorded by voice actors such as Mel Blanc. The show featured knock-about comedy and musical numbers starring Porky Pig, Elmer Fudd, and Road Runner with Bugs Bunny as master of ceremonies.
Chris signed on to stage-manage the tour to support Adirondack Scenic. In 1978, he convinced Hess to hire ADKS to build their scenery and props, and rehearse the upcoming season in Glens Falls, down the road from Warrensburg.
Hess liked the work so well ADKS went on to build Bugs Bunny in Space, Bugs Bunny Meets the Superheroes, Bugs Bunny’s Super Sports Spectacular, even a Bugs Bunny show that toured Latin America, pumping up the balance sheet for years.
A lightbulb moment
In 1978, General Electric was an unrivaled industrial conglomerate, an S&P 500 listed stock. As the company approached its 100th anniversary, Chairman and CEO Reg Jones wanted to celebrate the milestone with a touring show for employees.
Chris had managed a great many GE corporate meetings over the years, so Jones invited Chris and Tom to bid for the show. It would tour the country visiting every GE office, operational center, and manufacturing facility on the map. The show would feature live performers singing and dancing, a flashy multi-projector presentation, and corporate speakers saluting the contributions of its thousands of employees.
Chris and Tom hired Tony-nominated Broadway set designer Jim Tilton to build a three-dimensional model for the show’s set. He created it using miniature multicolor panels made of metallic mesh that sparkled when lit.
Convinced they had a winner, Chris and Tom took it to GE’s Fairfield, CT headquarters to meet with Jones, only to face a room full of suits. Though Tom no longer sported a ponytail halfway down his back, and the two of them had traded jeans for coats and ties, they were no corporate fashion plates. That didn’t stop them from winning the job.
The job was massive, building three iterations of the set as well as organizing, coordinating, and managing the tour. And the timeline for delivery was ridiculously tight. Could Chris and Tom pull it off with everything else on their plate?
Enter Dick Emerson, a fellow theater tech who had been Tom’s roommate in New York as well as working summers with them at the Lake George Opera. He’d been teaching theater production in Vermont and was looking for a new challenge.
Dick took charge of scheduling and organizing, freeing Tom and Chris to build sets for what was now to be three separate touring companies. He lined up the trucks, drivers, and crews necessary to handle transportation, set-up, breakdown, light and sound, and the stack of 30 projectors to be perfectly re-synced at each new location.
The touring companies hit the road right on time, feverishly visiting 46 cities in six weeks to celebrate GE’s “100 Years” to great applause and a very satisfied CEO. ADKS continued to do their shareholder and annual officers’ meetings for the next 30 years.
With touring shows and corporate events under their belts, Chris and Tom could hold their heads high. They were ready to glide right into their next industry – and their next creative adventure.
Solutions on ice
Feld Entertainment, a live entertainment production company, had entered into a licensing agreement with Disney for a series of touring Disney on Ice live shows. They would play sports arenas around the country, with a new show each year. Like the Bugs Bunny shows, Disney on Ice was designed for family audiences.
Their first show, Walt Disney’s World on Ice, premiered in July 1981. It employed a cast of 60 skaters and four acrobats, retelling classic Disney fairytales. The production values were impressive. A massive curtain cordoned off the arena and served as a backdrop, with two entrances for performers to skate in and out from backstage. The curtain itself sparkled with appliqued beads, sequins, and imitation jewels, with strips of multicolored lights interwoven throughout.
As luck would have it, the company was rehearsing in Lake Placid, New York for the following season. Dick Emerson paid them a call and initially agreed to repair a couple of their moldy drapes before they hit the road for their next tour.
Impressed by the work, Feld asked ADKS to bid out the whole show and handed them the job. It was their first opportunity to work with long-time associate and scenic design specialist Reid Carlson, who would go on to become a senior art director at Universal Studios Florida.
The scenery had to be the highest quality, but it was not without complications when it came to its curtain. As with traveling ice shows, as soon as the Feld production team hung the show curtain across the back of an arena, it would soak up melted ice from the floor. After each engagement, the soggy curtain would be struck and packed in hampers, then unpacked and rigged at the next venue still soaking wet, which triggered mold and discoloration.
But Louis Allen, one of our early scenic painters, had a solution.
Louis employed synthetic muslin and a highly resilient acrylic paint that wouldn’t bleed when repeatedly exposed to water. It meant that the curtain would be mold-resistant and could withstand the constant moisture throughout the upcoming performance season.
Once again, attention to detail, innovation and performance resulted in a decades-long client relationship. Adirondack Scenic would go on to build sets and props for multiple editions of Feld’s Disney on Ice shows on a yearly basis for years to come.
Moving on
With demand for the company’s services growing, Adirondack Scenic was running out of workspace and storage. They were now renting whatever and wherever they could find it, including a Masonic lodge and available garages. Not only were projects pushing capacity, but staff was growing to accommodate project needs.
With a small business loan in hand, Adirondack Scenic took possession of a three-story former glove factory in nearby Glens Falls that fit the bill. The company now had 63,000 square feet at its disposal, 10 times the area of the original Warrensburg location.
The expansion came just in time, as the company was about to embark on some of its most ambitious projects yet.
