Ceremonies? ‘Don’t Expect 87 Pianos’

The opening and closing ceremonies of the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles changed the concept of those events forever, says the producer selected to stage the two galas for the XV Winter Games here in February. But he isn’t intimidated by the spectacles that unfurled in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

“Los Angeles is the show-business capital of the world and you would expect they would use that,” said Paddy Sampson, 62, a veteran Canadian stage and television producer.

“But there’s no point in our trying to do ‘War and Peace’ on a 16-foot stage. Our roots are much different, our audience will be different and the time of year will be different. It could be a balmy 20 (Celsius) above, or it might be freezing. This part of the world is a little more rugged.”

He told visiting editors and writers that he didn’t want to give anything away, but with that proviso he did state that the philosophy here has been to get the people of this host city involved. More than 5,000 persons, ages 3 to 80, all amateurs and all volunteers, will participate.

There will be elements such as a color guard, a 1,000-voice choir whose members range from 12 to middle age, plus “1,200 school kids that we’re not quite sure what they’ll do.”

The basic theme will evolve from what Sampson called “our deepest heritage and traditional ceremonies.” The opening ceremonies, he promised, will be a “novel and tasteful preface to the Games.”

“But,” he added, “don’t expect 87 pianos like you had in Los Angeles. It wouldn’t be fitting here.”