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City
company is long-running Broadway hit
BY DAVID
N. DUNKLE
Of The
Patriot-News
When a truck problem threatened on-time delivery of a critical
set piece for the musical "Chicago," Clark Transfer Inc. hired a
C-130 Hercules cargo plane to fly it from Milwaukee to Calgary,
Alberta.
It's the kind of commitment that for more than half a century has
made the Harrisburg company the gold standard for show business
transportation and recently earned it a top award from an industry
group.
On the rare occasions that Clark fails to get a show to a theater
on time, the family-owned company refunds the money of ticketholders.
"I don't like to do that," executive vice president Jonathan Deull
said.
It's happened a handful of times, most recently about three years
ago when one of Clark's owner-operator truckers had a heart attack.
On any given weekend, Clark Transfer trucks bearing the company
motto, "Let's get the show on the road," are moving more than 25
productions in as many as 400 loads.
Loads are tracked by satellite from a dispatch center on Paxton
Street that runs 24 hours a day.
"We make promises, and we keep them," said company President
Norma Deull, who is Jonathan Deull's mother. "We do what we say
we're going to do, and we do it on time."
That reliability helped to earn Clark Transfer the
annual Touring Broadway Production Achievement Award, presented May
8 in New York City by the League of American Theatres and Producers.
Think of it as a Tony Award for the road.
Norma Deull, President of Clark
Transfer, Inc.,
accepts the Touring Broadway Achievement
Award
When Broadway producers want to take hit shows such as "Movin' Out"
and "Les Miserables" out of New York and onto the road in the United
States, Canada or Mexico, they usually entrust their cargo and
drum-tight schedules to Clark.
"When I hear that Clark Transfer is responsible for a particular
show, I breathe a sigh of relief," said Susan Fowler, executive
director of Hershey Theatre, which often hosts front-line touring
productions.
Most recently that was the Twyla Tharp-Billy Joel dance musical "Movin'
Out," which a convoy of 10 Clark Transfer trucks delivered to the
Derry Twp. theater in April.
Since company founders Jim Clark and Louis
"Whitey" Molitch first loaded the sets and costumes for "Mister
Roberts" onto trucks in September 1949, Clark has logged more than
350 million miles, transporting more than 4,000 productions.
In 1958, Clark Transfer, Inc. trucked a
touring production of "Auntie Mame"
starring Silvia Sidney around the United States
That includes multimillion-dollar Broadway hits such as "Phantom of
the Opera," orchestras, ballets, operas and television productions.
"What we do is not the glamorous stuff, not the stuff the
audiences see," said Jonathan Deull, who is the grandson of Whitey
Molitch. "But there is a feeling that we are doing something
magical, that we are contributing to cultural life."
The company is known to go to extraordinary lengths to deliver shows
on time. Industry insiders still talk about the "Chicago" incident,
when a truck malfunctioned and Clark had to hire a transport plane
to get the musical's bandstand to Canada on time.
"They go above and beyond the call of duty to meet their
obligations," Fowler said.
The company became involved in show business transportation after
World War I, when Philadelphia residents Clark and Molitch bought a
trucking firm, renamed it Highway Express Lines and began
transporting films among the country's growing number of movie
palaces.
Eventually, they got an idea that would change the face of
American theater. By using trucks rather than trains, the two men
could bring theater to nearly any town in America.
"Going to Peoria, [Ill.,] or Lawrence, Kansas, was something that
was foreign to the theater industry," Jonathan Deull said.
At the time, theatrical touring productions in the U.S. legally
could travel only by train, which meant the shows only went to major
rail hubs such as Chicago or Boston.
If you lived in a midsized city such as Harrisburg, you were out of
luck unless you were willing to travel.
Clark and Molitch fought for several years before finally
breaking the railroad's monopoly on the traveling theater trade,
starting with "Mister Roberts."
By 1954, Clark transported 11 theater productions. The business
moved to Harrisburg in the early 1980s.
Today, the two men's idea
is a component of a profitable industry. Dozens of Broadway
productions are crisscrossing the country at any given moment,
replete with sets, costumes and high-tech electronic gear.
Clark Transfer, Inc. of Harrisburg used
a special trailer
to move the helicopter that was a key
part of the set for "Miss Saigon."
And when the trucks pull up outside the theater in the wee hours
of the morning, they usually bear the name Clark Transfer Inc.
"That's what we do, that's all we do, and that's all
we've done since 1948," Jonathan Deull said. |
