The theater mom brings Broadway production values to local community theaters
by Chelsea Sektnan
On a cool fall evening at the historic Malaga Cove Library Gallery & Garden, guests arriving for the Peninsula Library Friends Foundation’s supporter recognition event, A Novel Night, found themselves stepping straight into a storybook.
Twinkle lights stretched between the arches, votives flickered across the courtyard, and stacks of ribbon-tied novels lined the pathways. But it was the towering, four-by-seven-foot open book at the entrance that stopped everyone in their tracks. Painted with sweeping vines, curling script, and fairytale castle flourishes, it seemed to glow from within — an unexpected piece of theater in the middle of a quiet library courtyard.
“The book set the tone for the entire evening,” said Merlin David, executive director of the Peninsula Library Friends Foundation (FLFF). “It was beautiful — something you’d expect to see on a Broadway theater stage.”
The magical showstopper was created by volunteer Stacey Stoler, a South Bay mom known throughout the community for the magic she makes with cardboard, paint, tape, silicone, and sheer willpower.
“Stacey is one of the most creative, generous people I know,” David said. “She has this ability to elevate everything she touches.”
Her fingerprints are everywhere: on youth theater productions, classroom decorations, her epic Halloween party, and on the stage of the Norris Theatre.
Stoler didn’t plan to become the person to call when you need something impossible made out of nothing.
“She never trained for this,” said longtime collaborator Jen Clinton. “She started because her kids were in theater and their productions needed props. And then we all realized she was incredible.”
As Stoler tells it, “One of her daughters needed a Tin Man heart for The Wizard of Oz, and the prop list came up empty. So she dumped a drawer on the counter, grabbed a glue gun, and created a heart. That first scramble backstage quietly snowballed into years of saying yes whenever something needed to be built.
Her learning curve was steep and entirely self-taught. She learned by trial and error. What she couldn’t find, she built. What the theater couldn’t afford, she problem-solved. People realized her mind worked in a way that few do.
“She’s always five steps ahead,” said Whitney Cicero, comedian and founder of Wink Creative Agency. “You give her a tiny idea, and it comes back a thousand times better than what you imagined.”
At the Palos Verdes Performing Arts Youth Conservatory, she’s the backbone of the props department.
“She does props for all of our shows,” said Conservatory Director Joel Sluyter. “She creates all of them, and always goes well beyond what a prop master would do.”
Sluyter, who has worked with Stoler for six years, called her, “An incredible person — very loving, always gives a hundred percent, and makes everyone around her happy.”
Sluyter still talks about last summer’s Mean Girls production, when Stoler built two full-scale Transformer costumes that moved and lit up under stage lights.
“She created them from scratch, from just paint, and cardboard, and tape, and all these different materials. They were just incredible,” Sluyter said.
Stoler’s genius isn’t just technical. It’s emotional and intuitive in the way she understands what kids need to feel confident onstage.
“She builds things that help performers step into their characters,” Clinton said. “She gives them something real to hold, and suddenly the acting changes.”
Her materials are often as humble as her beginnings. Stoler works with whatever is around her: foam sheets, thrift-store bowls, cardboard from appliance boxes, silicone caulk, Flex Seal, acrylic paint, and craft store finds that end up looking like high-end set pieces. She knows which adhesive works on which surface, how to reinforce something so it survives choreography, and how to make almost anything from a mold.
“Some people just find things and put them together,” Sluyter said. “She creates magical ideas from scratch.”
That ingenuity extends beyond the stage. Cicero often collaborates with Stoler on commercial campaigns.
“She has this MacGyver energy,” Cicero said. “She can take something from a visual idea into a practical prop or costume like nobody I’ve ever seen.”
For one client, Stoler customized pit-crew uniforms from Dickies jumpsuits, then hand-stitched shoulder and sleeve details and branded the backs herself. She’s built robot heads, fake cakes for Legally Blonde, an enormous mascot head for Bring It On, and even Bosu-ball ‘lice heads’ for a shampoo commercial.
“I have to think about it, ask questions, sketch things out… and then I just figure it out,” Stoler said. “I didn’t have tutorials, I didn’t have AI. My brain tells me what to do.”
Her creations aren’t magic. They’re puzzles. She loves puzzles. Her garage is a workshop full of half-finished ideas and experiments. Her kitchen table has cured silicone molds next to dinner plates.
“I am covered in paint most of the time,” she said.
Even though her work looks professional, Stoler still insists she’s not. She doesn’t market herself. She doesn’t take on projects for money, except for material costs. She builds now for the same reason as when she started, because someone needs something, and she wants to help.
“She’s truly a volunteer at heart,” David said. “She does more than people realize.”
Parents know. Kids know. Directors know. Performers know. And her collaborators know best of all.
“When Stacey is involved in a show, everyone breathes easier,” Clinton said. “She’s the person who fixes the thing no one else can fix.”
She’s a mom to four daughters, all theater kids, all creative. She has juggled years of rehearsals, carpools, costume fittings, tech weeks, and long hours spent backstage. And always with humor. Always with patience. Always with the same steady belief that theater, especially youth theater, works best when everyone brings what they can to the table.
“She shows up for people. That’s just who she is,” Clinton said.
Her work is often the last thing audiences notice, but the first thing that makes a scene feel real. A potion bottle. A platter of seafood. A megaphone. A mask. A crown. A robot. A fairytale book towering under twinkle lights.
“She creates the atmosphere,” David said. “She creates the setting that makes everything come alive.”
Stoler doesn’t see herself as an artist, or anyone grand. She sees herself as someone who loves her community, loves her kids, and loves the challenge of turning an idea into something real. But for the people who’ve worked with her, watched her build, and stood in awe of the finished result, Stoler is nothing short of essential.
“If someone needs something and I can figure it out, I’m going to do it,” Stoler said. “…Half the time I’m learning as I go, but it always works out somehow.” ER
