TAP Window Display Lights Up City Intersection

About four dozen vintage figures fill the windows at Third Avenue PlayWorks (TAP) in downtown Sturgeon Bay, thanks to one of the actors and TAP supporters. Submitted photo.

Renovation of the Third Avenue PlayWorks theater two years ago created three stories of windows, and a TAP actor jumped at the chance to use them for a holiday display.

Seasonal lights create a festive mood throughout downtown Sturgeon Bay, and Ray Jivoff surely set up the most unusual scene near Third and Jefferson.

Jivoff has hundreds of plastic-molded figures, and perhaps one-tenth of his collection of three- to four-foot-high snowmen, carolers and nonsectarian, holiday blow molds – hollow objects made of plastic – adorn the windows.

Jivoff’s collection started growing around 1990 while he was at Skylight Music Theatre in Milwaukee. During a holiday cabaret, he started using them to decorate the theater and sets and then got hooked on them.

He said the blow molds emerged after World War II. As plastics improved, they gained popularity in the 1960s and 1970s. New models have gained a following, but he prefers the older ones with incandescent light.

Jivoff said during December, he fills his home with Santas. He said his most unusual pieces include a faded Tasmanian Devil from the 1970s and a gargoyle that he might use for a set later in the performance season.

In addition to entertaining passersby on the street, Jivoff is starring in several roles – including that of evil Mr. Potter – in It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play, which runs Dec. 13-31.