BRATTLEBORO — Four years ago, brothers Mike and Steve Perrucci from Perkasie, Pa., whose fifth visit to Brattleboro on Feb. 20 will culminate in the Fifth Annual Domino Toppling Extravaganza at Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (BMAC), traveled to town to build and then topple a custom-made domino course in the museum's main gallery.
BMAC Director Danny Lichtenfeld and his then-seven-year-old son discovered the Perruccis on YouTube, where the brothers had posted videos of domino courses they had created in their basement.
Lichtenfeld contacted them to get the name of someone from New England who could create a similar domino course at BMAC. Instead, the Perruccis offered to travel to Brattleboro and create the course themselves.
Neither the Perruccis nor the throngs of eager onlookers who packed into the Museum for that first toppling were quite sure what to expect.
The event was enough of a success that the brothers have made return appearances every year since.
The YouTube videos of the Perruccis' first four appearances in Brattleboro have been viewed hundreds of thousands of times. Last year's toppling, which featured more than 20,000 dominoes and the assistance of collaborators Shane O'Brien and Aiden Finnegan, was broadcast live on WCAX-TV.
According to Lichtenfeld, this year's toppling almost didn't happen, because Steve Perrucci has a back injury that will not allow him to spend the requisite dozens of hours on his hands and knees, alongside Mike, carefully placing each handmade, hand-painted domino.
But the 15-year-old O'Brien, from just outside New York City, is available to help Mike Perrucci prepare for the annual toppling.
And as usual, the audience member who comes closest to guessing the exact number of dominoes in the course will have the honor of initiating the toppling.