Exhibit honors work of set designer Michael Gallagher

Final reception set for May 4 in Carbondale’s Chamber Gallery

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Maybe they needed a fussy yet tidy Victorian house where the two “Arsenic and Old Lace” ladies, with the best of intentions, could poison lonely men.

Or maybe a play called for something a little gloomier and more Gothic, a place where Dracula could step out of a portrait above the fireplace.

Or maybe “Nobody Hears a Broken Drum,” a saga set in the anthracite coalfields of history would be best enhanced by the skeleton of an old coal breaker.

Those are just three of the many sets Michael Gallagher of Wilkes-Barre has designed over the decades, and if you’ve been in the audience for shows at Music Box Playhouse in Swoyersville or Little Theatre in Wilkes-Barre or the Scranton Public Theater, chances are, you’ve seen his work.

Photographs, drawings, watercolor renderings and small-scale models of his sets are on display at the Chamber Gallery, 27 Main St., Carbonale, under the title “The Art of Theatrical Set Design: A Retrospective of the Work of Michael Gallagher.” The exhibit runs through May 9, and a final reception is set for 7 to 9 p.m. on Saturday, May 4.

During an artist talk that evening, you can expect Gallagher to tell stories from his years in theater, “some of them true and all of them embellished.” Actors will be on hand to perform excerpts from productions Gallagher has set designed for Music Box Playhouse, and refreshments will be served.

If you are from Wilkes-Barre and have seen Gallagher’s work on Wyoming Valley stages, you might wonder why this exhibit is in Carbondale.

Chamber Gallery director Ruthanne Jones, long an admirer of Gallagher’s work, pointed out the designer also “has mounted many set designs in Scranton and he is a renown set designer in Lackawanna County.”

“Art and theater go hand in hand,” Jones continued. “He creates the atmosphere and the whole tone of a play or musical.”

“He is very well respected (and) he is a wonderful artist,” she said, adding she was active in student theater at Wilkes University, then Wilkes College, when Gallagher also was studying there.

“I learned so much from Klaus Holm,” Gallagher said of his student days in 1968-1972, crediting the late associate professor of theater arts.

More recently Gallagher has worked on local theatrical productions with Holm’s daughter, Jessica Werbin, who appreciates the way Gallagher’s designs “are so reminiscent of my father. They are such a joy.”

His style is “very old school, with wonderful drawing,” she said. “It’s so refreshing to see that.”

Some of his favorite memories, Gallagher said, include working with the late playwright Jason Miller. Gallagher designed a set for a local production of Miller’s “That Championship Season,” in which former basketball players reminisce about a pivotal game, and “Nobody Hears a Broken Drum,” about the hardships of 19th century coal miners.

When the latter play was presented at the Kirby Center in 1998, Times Leader Theater Critic Bob Nocek wrote that it delivered “the complete package, passionately directed by Bob Shlesinger on a magnificent set that once and for all proves Michael Gallagher’s design genius.”

After Gallagher officially retired in 2017, his Music Box colleague Debbie Zehner told a reporter, “He truly put his heart and soul and life into the theater. He’s done some gorgeous things, and even when it looked like it would be impossible to put something on that small stage, he’s been able to make it work.”

Another friend, Joe Sheridan, credited him with creating “beautiful sets for huge shows on a tiny, tiny stage. He makes it look spacious and grand and opulent despite the size limitations. That’s his true genius.”

With typical modesty Gallagher said that skill was “a matter of necessity. You do everything your little brain can do.”

The local theater community has appreciated what Gallagher’s “little brain” has accomplished, presenting him with numerous awards for set design and lighting. But perhaps the highest accolade came from Kim Rose, then president of the Music Box Players, who said of Gallagher in early 2018, “He could have been a big fish in a bigger pond. But he chose to stay here and help nurture local talent.”