People like the stage sets artist Glynis Crabb has done for South Valley plays so much, they have asked if she could put them in their homes.
Crabb, 68, spends months building her intricate and authentic designs in a Gilroy warehouse and then has them trucked to the Limelight Theater in Gilroy, South Valley Civic Theater in Morgan Hill and San Benito Stage Company in Hollister.
“Set design can set the whole mood of a show,” says actress Rachel Perry. “As an actor, I feel that the set lends itself to the characters we become onstage.”
Perry’s known Crabb for a few years through their mutual appreciation of theater.
“She is an amazing talent,” Perry says. “Her vision and execution are always flawless and fun.”
Crabb’s art varies depending on the production. She’s worked on sets for productions ranging from The Wizard of Oz to Always…Patsy Cline. She’s responsible for the set of Limelight Theater’s summer season production of Lend Me a Tenor, opening this week. The Tony-award winning comedy by Ken Ludwig originally debuted on Broadway in the late 1980s.
“When there are original pieces of art on the set that have to be created, she’s my go-to person,”says Kevin Heath, the Limelight’s co-owner.
Crabb gets inspiration for her set designs from the larger theater productions in San Francisco and Monterey.
“Being part of the set design and the set artist, I usually go to the big shows and either get ideas or pull their set apart,” Crabb jokes. “‘I would have done it that way’ or ‘That’s fantastic.’”
She scales down what she sees in big money productions but keeps the essence for the smaller halls.
“The big shows rely on projection a lot these days, which is a beautiful thing and I think there’s a designer putting that together,” Heath says. “It can be effective. But for smaller theaters, and ours is a good example of that, we can’t rely on a big flat screen that will tell a story. We have set pieces that tell it. That’s where a set artist like Glynis is super important.”
Crabb enjoys working with Heath and said that they seem to be on the same wavelength most of the time.
“She’s as crazy as I am, so that helps,” Heath jokes.
For the current comedy, Lend Me a Tenor, Crabb takes playgoers to 1934 in Cleveland, where an opera singer takes a knock-out drug and his assistant has to fake the role.
“Kevin wanted it to look like a classy 1930s hotel room,” Crabb says. “I wanted to keep the colors down to a minimum, because I think it can get too busy onstage sometimes.”
The production, directed by community theater performer Steve Spencer, also marks the Limelight Theater’s annual fundraiser for the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s research.
“Glynis usually donates something besides her time, which is important,” Heath says. “She donates to the fundraiser as well.”
Crabb was introduced to set artistry and design in 1999 when her son graduated from Gilroy High School. She got involved with the Sober Graduation event.
“We converted the two gyms into four different areas,” Crabb says. “I had two rooms: a disco room and an arcade room. That was the first time I really painted large. I did a 64-foot by 10-foot-high Star Wars battle scene, with the Death Star and everything, in the disco room. The arcade room had Batman, Robin and the Joker.”
Crabb said she spent nearly two months in a warehouse on the outskirts of Gilroy working on the event’s artwork. A friend of hers got her involved with South Valley Civic Theater afterwards.
“It was The Music Man,” Crabb says. “So my friend called me up and asked if I would help. At the time I worked in a small warehouse at the north end of Gilroy. We had to transfer everything on trucks to the South Valley Theater in Morgan Hill on the back of pickups! We lost a few things.”
Crabb has done around 20 shows for South Valley Civic Theater over the years. Her favorite set was the theater’s 2010 production of The King and I.
“That was a fabulous set!” Heath says. “One of the best sets I’ve ever seen.”
Heath thinks set design is just as important as a good actor or good costume designer.
“The set designer has to have a vision of course, and the director has to have a vision,” he says.
“Speaking for Glynis and I, I would come up with the bones of the set and have a vision. I’ll send her pictures on Facebook and go ‘I’m thinking of doing this.’ And she’ll come in and make it better than my original idea.”
Crabb came to the United States from the United Kingdom in 1975 with her husband and son, who was eight at the time.
“I’ve done some art on and off throughout my life, but never really pursued it,” Crabb says. “I wanted to go to an art college when I was young, but the teachers at school said I wasn’t good enough, so I didn’t do that.”
Crabb says she left school not knowing what she wanted to do. She became a radiographer, which fulfilled what she wanted to do at the time.
“I always wanted to paint. Because I’ve worked all my life, I’ve never really had the time. And so now I’m 68, like pretty much retired from X-ray. So I have the opportunity to pursue it now.”
“She had an art exhibit here at the beginning of the year,” Heath says. “She also helped us out last year when we had an artist cancel at the last minute. I called her and said ‘Can you bring your art over, because we need an art exhibit.’ And she said ‘Sure.’ She really supports the center. We couldn’t do it without her.”
Although Crabb’s been painting on smaller canvases lately, she says she prefers painting in larger mediums, much like her theater sets.
“I enjoy painting large and letting the art speak for itself,” says Crabb. “We’re all different. Every artist produces something different and I think it’s part of themselves.”
