Radio City Music Hall control board operator Eric Titcomb was set to retire last year, but with the “Radio City Christmas Spectacular” canceled last season, he postponed retirement by a year so he could come back and do one more season of the Christmas show.

“I love what I do. Nobody has a better job or a cooler job than I do. Everybody has seen my work,” Titcomb said with pride.

Titcomb is kind of a legend around here. His work moving the stages and curtain on the Christmas show is so rapid and complex that for decades he could not take a day off — even a sick day because no one could fill in for him.

What You Need To Know

  • After 43 years and 33 years respectively, Eric Titcomb and Ted Wondsel both postponed retirement to come back to a reopened Radio City Music Hall and do one more season of the Christmas Spectacular

  • Titcomb moves the pieces of the stage and the curtain during the show

  • Wondsel worked while the hall was dark during the pandemic and felt he had to come back to see Radio City be truly brought back to life
  • Even though Radio City Music Hall reopened in June, for many who work at the famed venue, it hasn't truly reopened until the holiday season

“My boss said to me, ‘Don’t make the show so complicated that no one else could do it.’ Well, I ended up making the show so complicated that no one else could do it,” Titcomb admitted.

In 1999, some modernized presets were added, but for the most part, the job is the same: working on the original 1932 control board, moving the world’s biggest and most expensive curtain and moving pieces of the stage for the world’s largest theater — all while performers, stagehands, scenery, and musicians are also moving furiously to bring the show to life.

“For this Christmas show, we have 77 elevator moves and about 24 curtain moves. So there’s a show behind the show,” said Titcomb.

Similarly, after 33 years, head carpenter Ted Wondsel was also set to retire in 2020, but waited to do one more Christmas season.  

Like Titcomb, he’s worked countless events here, but the Christmas show is special. The stagehands, musicians, and the Rockettes are like family.

“I saw the Christmas show back in, I’m going to say 1965,” said Wondsel. “My favorite part was the camels and it’s still the camels.”

Wondsel oversees all scenery and sets, including all the pieces that fly in out on a pulley system, like Santa’s sleigh and perhaps the largest prop anywhere, the Christmas bus. It weighs 15,000 pounds and it hangs from the ceiling.

“And you walk under it countless times a day?” I asked. 

“No problem, no problem,” said Wondsel cooly.

With such precise choreography on stage and off, even a small mistake could be disastrous. So safety is paramount.  

“I did my shows and nobody got hurt on my watch. Legacy was nobody got hurt on my stage,” said Titcomb, choked up with emotion. 

He’s been here 43 years and has completed about 9,000 Christmas shows. And yet, he says every show is special. 

“Every show brings its own joy. You hear the audience, you hear the kids, the applause. You’re bringing Christmas joy to a million people every Christmas season. How can you not like every show? It’s a joyous occasion,” said Titcomb. 

And Titcomb and Wondsel won’t really say goodbye. They’ll be back next year, in the audience with their families.