In mid-town Manhattan, on a block with parking garages, an Indonesian and a Japanese restaurant, sits a 10-story brick building. A gold-colored plaque identifies it as the "Creative Arts Building." An antiquated sign above the plaque indicates the building can also be used as a fallout shelter.

   Contained in this building -- and on just three floors -- is the opulence of the Spaulding mansion; the down-home, laid-back eateries, Company and the Wheels & Meals Diner; and the trendy Towers Club.

   Welcome to the home of the long-running CBS soap opera, "Guiding Light." The show that began as a radio melodrama is now in its 57th year and recently aired its 12,000th television broadcast.

   Thanks to the prodding of my brother-in-law, my sister bid on and won a backstage tour of the "Guiding Light" studios, at a charity auction sponsored by the Junior League of Westchester on the Sound, of which she is a member.  Luckily, she passed this gift on to me; I date my affair with "Guiding Light" back to the late 1970s. I shared this journey with a friend who knew more about the show than probably anyone there.

   Not wanting to be late, we arrived at least 45 minutes early for the 2:30
p.m. tour. I gladly waited in the lobby relieved to be off my feet. It gave me the opportunity to practice my cool as I would soon encounter actors I'm used to seeing only on television.

   The elevator popped open and Vincent Irizarry (Nick) quickly strode to the door out to the street. (Good looking. Needs a hair cut.) A little later, Marj Dusay (Alexandra) exited the building, possessing that sort of regal bearing that made her such a good choice to replace the legendary Beverlee McKinsey. Marcy Walker (Tangie) breezed in on her way to the studios. Some actors appear for an a.m. taping, some for an afternoon taping.

   The soap opera's home is headquartered on the fourth, fifth, and sixth floors of the building. On the fourth floor is administration. The fifth floor houses hair and make-up, the rehearsal hall, props, and costumes. Sixth floor is where the show is taped at Studio A and Studio B. Also on that floor are dressing rooms, the control room and the tape room.

   Hosts for the tour were the show's lighting designer, Brian McRae (he and his wife donated the tour) and the show's publicist, Liz Susman Karp.

   McRae's job ranges from making sure a lamp on a desk burns bright when clicked on to crafting a specific feeling with his lighting.

   "I think it helps the viewer feel the scene if you can subliminally suggest
to them what the mood of the scene is along with the dialogue," he said.

   Actors in the a.m. session report at 7 a.m. and can be out by 2:30 p.m. The p.m. session actors have later "call" times. If they're in the first couple of  scenes, they can be out in a couple of hours or linger until as late as 10 p.m. if they're in the last shot.

   "We've had shows that went nearly 24 hours. We did a fashion show about 1 1/2 years ago and the last thing I remember is being here at 4 in the morning,"  McRae remembered.

   "The lighting was very complicated [in that episode]. The blocking was very complicated. We had a lot of extras. We were dealing with intricate wardrobe and a lot of changes. And we had a lot of principal cast members."

   Seeing Springfield in carefully numbered pieces puts it all in perspective.
On this day in Studio A, the larger of the two sets, the crew was disassembling the diner that was used in the morning shoot. They lay down the floor for the Georgian Room set that will be used Monday. Alan Spaulding's living room rested in one corner and Alexandra Spaulding's study was full of technical equipment.

   McRae said Studio A can hold five sets if necessary but it would be a tight fit. (The subsequent fiesta scene after Frank and Eleni's wedding took up all of Studio A.) And if traffic isn't on their side, the crew can play the waiting game. Due to space constraints, all the "Guiding Light" sets are stored in Brooklyn. On the recent Columbus Day weekend, the show had three days worth of sets trucked in because cast members would be working on that Monday and Tuesday, but those drivers wouldn't.

   Cruising through hair and make-up, we met the artists who make the actors look so flawless and well-groomed. The two hair designers are Ralph Stanzione and CeCe Campbell. For make-up there is Paul Gebbia and Helen Gallagher.

   Gallagher worked on the petite, British actress Fiona Hutchison (Jenna) who had just stepped over from hair. Rick Hearst (Alan-Michael) and Ron Raines (Alan) sat in the last chair in the hair room running lines.

   After hair and make-up, Linda Locker Stone offered the final touch with costumes. She buys clothes for all the cast and keeps her eyes open for that right piece of clothing even if she's not on the job.

   "We do a lot with major department stores where they have the biggest
selection of designer clothing with a lot of style. I like describing characters through clothing," Stone said.

   Stone will soon be dolling up the cast for Ed and Eve's engagement party, hosted by Ross and Blake. She showed us the saucy, little black and gold dress that the vivacious Blake will be wearing. Stone explained how she'll accessorize for Blake.

   "First off, I'll pull the dress," she said. "Blake has boxes of jewelry that
she's worn before so we know it looks good on her and it's identifiable and it establishes the character."

   The "Guiding Light" studios are a pack-rat lover's dream because nothing is thrown away. They have wedding dresses for characters dating back years because you never know when someone might have a flashback. Imagine rooms of props with baskets of pictures, shelves full of lamps, racks of silver, and rows of glassware. And every painting that has ever hung on a wall in Springfield is meticulously catalogued like everything else.

   There is even a room of carpeting with labels such as "Billy/Vanessa's
hallway" and "Holly's living room."

   "For budgetary reasons, we keep everything until it's splintering apart,"
Susman Karp explained.

   Watching the taping of a scene proved fascinating and amusing. So I won't divulge anything allegedly significant for this scene, which will be part of the Oct. 20 show, just say it involved Alan, Jenna, Roger (Michael Zaslow), and Alan's secretary, Susan, in Alan's study. The scene was blocked earlier. They rehearsed, then they went to tape.

   During a cut, Gallagher and Campbell dashed in to freshen up Hutchinson. The director of this episode, Jo Anne Sedwick, came down from the control room and gave the actors some notes before they taped.

   Little delays concerned a debate over the placement of a yellow chair. Things seem ready until Hutchison tripped on her high heels getting in the door. Once the laughter died down, they tried it again. No good. Jenna and Susan cracked up when they looked at each other. The next time the scene was ready to go to print.

   Three hours later, our behind-the-scenes tour was done. We had our photos. We had our autographed scripts. We had our memories (and I had my photo with Michael Zaslow.) Theoretically we knew "Guiding Light" was more than just the actors. Now we knew how much more.

   We'll never look at Springfield the same again.

Copyright 1994 The Durham Herald Co.