Gameplan

Producer of Papal Mass, Events
Knows His Way Around New York

By MARY ANN POUST

With a scale model of Yankee Stadium as it will look during Pope Benedict XVI's Mass on his worktable, Stig Edgren points to the stage that will be erected for the liturgical celebration, including an altar and seating for concelebrants, choirs and other participants in the April 20 liturgy.

Edgren, who is producing the stadium Mass and two other papal events during Benedict's April 18-20 New York visit, also points out a disc embossed with a papal seal in the middle of the infield from which long yellow and white streamers are fanning out, giving the illusion of carpeting.

The disc was designed to cover the pitcher's mound, Edgren explained, and the fabric streamers-in the Vatican colors-do not touch the ground in order to protect the infield turf.

"The Yankees have been great to us, but they're just starting their season," he said, "so our whole stage and production area has to be confined to the infield dirt.

"We can't touch the grass," he said.

A veteran special events producer and designer, Edgren's credits include arena shows for entertainers such as Barry Manilow and Cher as well as President Clinton's 1993 Arkansas Inaugural Ball, and President Reagan's 1984 tribute to the U.S. Olympic medalists.

From his base in Los Angeles, he also has made a name for himself as a top U.S. producer of papal events.

After staging Masses on consecutive days at Dodger Stadium and the Los Angeles Coliseum during Pope John Paul II's 1987 U.S. tour, he was signed by the New York Archdiocese to produce the pontiff's 1995 Mass in Central Park.

"Central Park had its challenges," Edgren said. "There were no rest rooms, and there were so many barriers needed for the site. But Yankee Stadium has its challenges too."

Not the least, he noted, is the tight setup schedule allotted to erect the 160-foot stage on a raised platform, along with the altar, backdrop, canopy, seating for the participating cardinals and bishops, staircases for them to gain access, and lighting, sound and video systems.

It goes on and on-including plans to fashion a backstage area for "hundreds and hundreds of people" in existing stadium facilities.

"We have 300-plus people just in the pre-Mass show," said Edgren. "Then we have all of our banner holders, our flag bearers, our choirs-we have a lot of people backstage that we need to fit into all the existing Yankee rooms."

The papal visit team will start work immediately after the Yankees-Red Sox game on Thursday night, April 17, he said, and they are hoping it will not go into extra innings because the work has to be completed by Saturday night, when the U.S. Secret Service begins its security sweeps.

Said Edgren, "We literally have 48 hours."

Edgren, a Catholic who grew up in Westbury, Long Island, has a production team of some 400 people, which he calls "the best in the world." Many worked on the '95 papal Mass in Central Park and on the '87 Los Angeles Masses, and a lot of them are from the concert world as well.

"They're coming in from all over the country to make this happen," he said. "That's why I know we can do this."

Helping the professionals at the actual events will be some 2,000 volunteers, who will undergo special training beforehand.

"There will be hundreds outside Yankee Stadium alone, greeting people and directing them, and hundreds more at the seminary helping with the crowd flow," Edgren said.

At the stadium Mass itself, he said, a volunteer will be assigned to each of the 550 priests who will distribute Communion to Massgoers in the stands.

"They'll be guides, who will take the priests to their sections," he said, explaining that they are needed because "the priests won't have a chance to rehearse, only the guides will."

Edgren, who had been going back and forth between the East and West coasts for months, has now stationed himself in New York to work nonstop on the stadium Mass, the youth rally and chapel ceremony at St. Joseph's Seminary in Dunwoodie, and the pope's visit to Ground Zero.

He spoke to CNY from the office that has been set up for him in a large meeting room in the New York Catholic Center in Manhattan. There, he is surrounded by boards with aerial shots of the papal sites, renderings of the events diagramed from every possible angle, and nonstop emails and phones.

One table has color printouts of the various credentials and parking passes that will be issued to everyone from local crew members and volunteers at the sites to special tags for cardinals, Vatican media and the papal entourage.

"Credentialing is always a challenge," Edgren said. "There are so many different levels."

The pope's schedule during his April 18-20 visit to the archdiocese is a combination of Church-related and official functions-including a speech to the United Nations, a Mass for clergy and religious and a meeting with national and local Christian leaders--and the pastoral events that Edgren's team is overseeing.

The Sunday afternoon stadium Mass, with some 58,700 ticketed people expected, is the largest and most elaborate-full of pageantry, and designed as a spiritually uplifting occasion and fitting climax of the three-day papal visit.

The Saturday youth rally on the grounds of St. Joseph's Seminary, Dunwoodie, on the other hand, will have a festival feel, Edgren said.

"We're planning it as a fun event," he said.

The more than 20,000 attendees include high school- and college-age students along with seminarians and women and men preparing to enter religious orders from around the country.

"It's very much like a mini-Central Park," Edgren said, "in that we need to start from scratch. It's an open field, and we need to build everything from our staging area to barricades to toilet facilities and food and merchandise stands.

"There will also be a quiet prayer area near the seminary," he added.

Heightening the festival environment will be the four hours of entertainment to warm up the crowd, so to speak, before the pope's 4 p.m. arrival.

Because security rules call for all attendees to be on the grounds by noon, the production team lined up a roster of local musical talent and professional performers to keep the crowd entertained.

The headline act is two-time Grammy winner Kelly Clarkson, who will close the concert and then sing "Ave Maria" to the pope.

Other professionals include Grammy-nominated Christian rapper TobyMac; three-time Grammy winner Third Day, a contemporary Christian group; Salvador, a Latino Christian pop group; and the female singing group Three Graces.

The West Point Choir also will perform at the rally and again at Yankee Stadium.

"That's the only choir that will be in both places," Edgren said.

The local talent was chosen by the archdiocese in a contest, and it includes dance acts, choirs, an alternative rock band, a jazz band and a Christian rap dance group, Edgren said.

On Sunday morning, the pope will visit Ground Zero, where he will offer a prayer for the 9/11 victims and greet some 24 representatives of victims and first responder groups.

The staging for that will begin on Friday afternoon, April 18, after the construction crews working at the site close down for the day at 3:30 p.m.

"We start our building at that point," Edgren said, adding that the heavy equipment at the construction site will remain there during the papal ceremony.

"We want it to feel like a work in progress," he said, adding that the Ground Zero visit will be short, quiet and relatively private.

Like the rally at the seminary, the Yankee Stadium Mass Sunday afternoon will feature a full pre-Mass show, but with more traditional pop and religious acts, with singer Harry Connick Jr, as headliner, an opening procession of high school students and a recording of the bells of St. Peter's Basilica to start it off at noon.

Other singers on board include Latino pop star José Feliciano; the Irish performer-politician Dana, who has sung at previous papal events; Ronan Tynan, the "voice of the Yankees," who will sing his trademark "God Bless America"; and the Metropolitan Opera's Marcello Giordani.

Four choirs will sing, and a 58-piece orchestra will provide the music. Daniel Ezralow, who recently choreographed Julie Taymor's film "Across the Universe," is director of the pre-Mass show; Benoit Jutras, a composer for Cirque du Soleil, wrote a soaring instrumental piece for the opening procession, which Edgren said, "will take you to heaven and back."

Edgren added that for his part, he is happy to be back in New York and working on his fourth papal event.

"I'm living in California now, but I'll always be a New Yorker," he said. "I'm at home here."

"And I'm honored to be a part of this. I just love who I'm working with," he added. "Cardinal Egan has been very gracious to me, and I'm going to do a good job for him."

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