An Interview with Gary Fails Upon his Retirement from City TheatricalThe following is an interview City Theatrical conducted with its founder, Gary Fails, upon his retirement. City Theatrical (CT): Gary, Congratulations on your upcoming retirement! Your impact on this company and our industry as a whole is profound. You will be missed more than you know, and we wish you all the best! Thinking back, what are some of your favorite memories from starting City Theatrical in the Bronx 37 years ago? Gary Fails (GF): I always wanted to have a shop. I had worked in shops and was good with my hands and I wanted to start a business and to make things for show business. In 1986, I got married, we had a baby, and I started my business. It was a year of huge optimism and dreams of the future. I found a little industrial building in the South Bronx and renovated it myself. I went to a machinery auction and bought enough machines to get started and I was underway. I specialized in lighting accessories since I was a Broadway electrician and I knew what was needed and I knew how to make it, and there was no one else doing it -- there was literally no competition to what I was doing. I was making things that everyone needed, and the shop grew fast. It was a really exciting time. CT: What are some of your favorite memories from working at the City Theatrical office in New Jersey? GF: We were growing so fast in the South Bronx we kept outgrowing our building, but we were fortunate to be able to break through the wall into the adjoining building to expand. We did this three times, then got a building up the street, then another building up the street. We looked all over the Bronx for a good building without success then expanded our horizons to New Jersey and found a great building in Carlstadt. It was the perfect manufacturing building for us, bright and well-lit with windows all around, six loading docks, good office space and we were able to create an excellent manufacturing flow with a 300' long manufacturing aisle. Raw material came in one end of the building and finished goods exited the other end. We invested in better machinery and added a good powder coat line and we had our dream shop. CT: Who or what are some of the greatest influences on your career at City Theatrical? GF: I continued to work as a Broadway production electrician after I started my shop, and I was influenced by all the Broadway designers that I worked with. They all had specific accessory needs that no one else could provide so I created the products. I had a unique opportunity to get to know many of the world's top designers. I was Ken Posner's production electrician on his first Broadway show and did two shows with Don Holder before he went on to Lion King. I was Theron Musser's electrician on her last Broadway show. I worked with Peggy Eisenhauer and Jeff Croiter when they were up and coming assistants. I was a production electrician on 28 Broadway shows and met and became friends with most of the Broadway design community during that time. It was a wonderful opportunity. CT: What are one or two of the most interesting projects you have worked on through your role at City Theatrical? GF: We have worked on thousands of interesting projects and continue to do so every day. Anything we do with Jules Fisher and Paul Marantz rank at the top of the list of creativity and complexity. Both Jules and Paul are extremely mechanically adept along with being great creative thinkers. Brainstorming with them and creating the products they sketch out have been highlights for me. The other project I look back on as a highlight is the development of our Multiverse wireless DMX technology. Paul Kleissler and I dreamed of a new and advanced system of wireless data communication that could be scaled up to multiple universes. We started with a blank page and travelled around the country visiting chip designers and manufacturers and we created a system that had never been imagined before. Philip Nye joined our design team and Paul and Philp worked for two years to bring the products to market. As a company, it was a big bet on a new generation of technology that has gone on to provide City Theatrical's present growth. CT: What are several key learnings from running City Theatrical for three plus decades? GF : Here are a few learnings: - The leader sets the pace and the culture of the company.
- Over time a company faces lots of ups and downs and challenges which must be navigated. Every day is a new adventure.
- Running a company in a competitive industry takes constant attention.
- Hire the best people you can and support them every way you can. CT: What do you see for the future of lighting? GF: More LEDs, more video, more networking, more moving lights, less conventional lights, more Asian manufacturing, less customization, all adding up to creating a "mature" industry with less opportunity for startups. CT: What are you most looking forward to doing in your retirement? GF: First, having fun with my darling wife Terri Klausner every day. Second, letting my mind open up to new ideas and challenges. I have product ideas (not lighting) that I will explore in my newly expanded home workshop. CT: Any shout outs to colleagues who have helped make it possible along the way? GF: There are so many, but here are a few: • All of the DeVerna family and all of my Local One friends and who supported me when I left Four Star Lighting to start City Theatrical. • Fred Foster who helped me in so many ways and always gave me opportunities to create and manufacture products for ETC. • All of the ETC staff over the years who became great friends of City Theatrical. • Steve Terry, my friend of over 50 years (we went on the road with a show together when we were both teenagers) who has supported City Theatrical since the day I started. • Larry Dunn, Paul Kleissler, and Philip Nye, who formed the backbone of our electronics innovation. • Mark Lacko who was my industrial designer for nearly 30 years and who created the look and feel of our products and graphics. Please read our 30-year history and 35-year history to hear all the shoutouts, there are hundreds! CT: Is there anything else you may want to include? GF: My 50+ year career in professional lighting followed the arc of the industry from the primitive early days of rock & roll lighting to the introduction of moving lights, the creation of DMX, the birth of LEDs in architectural and entertainment lighting, the consolidation of local lighting shops, and the entry of Chinese manufacturers into the entertainment manufacturing world. It is a dramatically different lighting world today that requires much different skills than when I started. There were dozens of companies like mine that started in the 70s and 80s when the industry was young and many of the companies were "mom and pops". Today, private equity money drives the industry and there is less opportunity for small startups. I'm glad I could participate in our industry when the time was right. Read profile in ETNow. For more information, check out www.citytheatrical.com/company/gary-fails. 
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