"Nice place," says the man who has just crossed through the worn-looking, tile-floored foyer and into the hallway of the Center for Well-Being, 123 Mt. Nittany Rd., in Lemont. Dressed in a monochrome outfit of black interrupted only by the bright gray of his hair, he turns to his wife, who wears her short, brown tresses swept to one side.

"Yes, beautiful!" she replies with a smile, crooking her neck and taking in the scheme of earthy colors, wooden flooring and subtle decoration that composes the interior of the new-age yoga and massage facility. In just over an hour this woman, Judy Cook, will take the stage at the center, serving as the opening act for tonight's Acoustic Brew Coffeehouse concert. At the moment, however, she's indistinguishable from the 10-or-so volunteers that frantically crisscross in the hallway, rushing to assemble everything from the snack table to the stage.

As one such volunteer, Peggy Johnson, who serves as tonight's assistant show manager, walks by, Cook gently leans forward.

"Do you need help hauling anything in?" she asks.

"Oh yeah, chairs and stuff!" Johnson says excitedly.

"Well great! Where are the chairs?"

"Here, follow me."

Johnson then leads Cook out the forest green front doors of the converted church building as a man with a white, v-shaped beard that stretches to mid-chest walks in, a long, gray ponytail held by a shiny silver barrette peaking out from beneath his marled stocking cap.

"I'm sorry. We're not even close to being ready," says tonight's show manager, Jason Saltman, barely looking up as
he carries a folding chair beneath each arm.

"We're a little early. We didn't realize how long it would take us to get here," the man replies, taking his hat off and holding it firmly against his waist.

"Is there anything I can do to help?"

-- -- --

Such is the spirit of the Acoustic Brew Coffeehouse, a completely volunteer-run, non-profit concert series that brings high-quality, low-cost folk music into intimate venues within the State College region. The series is based on a premise that's hard to put into words, yet its title tries to aptly sum it up.

"The Brew," as those closest to it like to call it, is definitely acoustic, and even though it's not a coffeehouse, guests do enjoy coffee. And by theory it's a concert, but the feeling inside is more of a conversation in a "jam-packed 100-seat living room," as volunteer Paul Rito likes to call it -- an intimate night of songs, music, comment and sing-alongs.

"Some performers, actually most performers, just really open up," said Rito, who balances his fulltime job as a software consultant with his Brew duties. "You get things at these shows that you can't get when they're up on a stage with a big sound system, or with a giant, big-screen TV on each side of them."

"You really do get a show you're not going to see anywhere else."

This Saturday evening tradition began 10 years ago, when New England transplant John Walls modeled it after the Nameless Coffeehouse, a Cambridge, Mass.-based venture with which he hand been involved. Over the years, the Brew has grown, in terms of both its scope and its reputation. While most events still take place at the Center for Well-Being, some are staged at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Centre County, 780 Waupelani Extension, in State College, and the organization has begun to move larger shows to the State College High School South auditorium to accommodate bigger crowds. Yet another alteration occurred in 1998, when the loose-knit group of dedicated volunteers took the steps to formally incorporate.

All of these changes, at first, were a cause for concern for those closest to the Brew, as Rito will tell you. Personally, he recalls a conversation he had with one of the Brew's performers, Kelly Armor, before her show, which was the first at the high school. Rito expressed his worry that the essence of the Brew would be lost as the audiences and the venues got larger. But, following Armor's show, he was pleasantly surprised and Armor helped him realize why.

"She said, 'That's because the Acoustic Brew isn't a place, it's an idea, and you take that idea with you wherever you end up having your shows," Rito recalled.

And it's exactly that idea -- along with word of excellent facilities and planning abilities -- that has spread throughout the national folk music family. Over the years, the Brew has attracted Tom Paxton, Norman Blake, Christine Lavin and many other notable names in traditional music. For a tiny enterprise based out of a quaint community stranded in the middle of Pennsylvania, it's a reputation that makes those involved pretty proud, and Rito says he hears the same type of positive sentiments again and again from the Brew's featured performers. However, one such musician -- Peter Keane -- was able to truly sum up what it means for a musician to be part of the Brew.

"He came through and said, 'I'm on the road all year, and I just go from town to town. I'm driving 400 miles to my next gig, and I wonder why I'm doing this,'" Rito remembers.

"Then he said, 'Well, it's for nights like this.'"

However, "nights like this" -- like this particular evening in early February -- are more than one night for the well-oiled, human volunteer machinery beneath the surface of the Brew. Run by an eight- to-12- person board and powered by a number of smaller committees, planning for each of the series' two annual seasons begins roughly six months in advance. The booking committee meets first, and once the main acts are secured, the opening act committee chooses warm-up performers. Then, by way of an e-mail listserv, volunteer requests for each show are sent. A manager is chosen, and he or she then supervises the group of helpers who will handle refreshments, tickets, parking, setup, CD sales and the various other tasks that go into each Acoustic Brew performance. Altogether, it's a procedure that generally takes anywhere from 60 to 80 hours per show.

"It pretty much just all comes together now," Rito said.

"I wouldn't say it's automatic, but the process, well, it's definitely pretty honed."

-- -- --

And tonight, that process has already been set into motion. It's now 6:25 p.m., and show time's roughly an hour away. Betsy Gamble, a volunteer who wears a long braid that wraps around in front of her body, sits cross-legged on the floor in the hallway. Dressed in a white turtleneck and a loose purple blouse and pants, she writes on a white erasable board propped against the wall. It's one of the few things that now stands in the bare hallway, since everything else -- plants, framed pictures, decorative ceramic masks -- have already been moved into a converted storage room, a space usually used by the center for therapy and massage.

With purple marker, Gamble writes clearly:

"Acoustic Brew Presents--Peggy Seeger with Judy Cook."

Seeger still hasn't arrived, however, so it's only Cook for now. The Maryland-based traditional vocalist has just finished helping the volunteers carry and set up the padded folding chairs in a circular fashion around the makeshift stage and now she prepares to sound check. Stepping onto the roughly shin-height, wooden stage, which has been carefully fitted piece by piece into a jar-shaped indentation in the far wall, Cook sings a few lines.

"Beautiful," she says, and the sound check is over almost as quickly as it began.

As Cook steps down, her husband -- waiting in the doorway -- turns and shakes his head.

"Compared to a lot of other venues we've seen, Jason (Saltman) seems to have things pretty well-organized," he says.

"Not to mention a really great group of volunteers."

That group, in the next half-hour or so, wraps up the final preparations. Gamble hangs signs and takes on parking duty. Other volunteers congregate in the second room on the right-hand side of the hall, normally an office but tonight a hub for refreshments. The men and women rearrange desks and tables, covering them with red and white-checkered cloths, trays of baked goods, coffeepots and hot water heaters in a quick but calm manner.

At the same time, however, there is one concern tainting the stress-free, casual atmosphere. Shortly after 7 p.m., a group of roughly 10 eager ticket-holders has already congregated in the small foyer, held back by ticket-taker Dave Judice. Seeger, on the other hand, still has not arrived. Saltman and Johnson stand alongside the baked goods and coffee, discussing the problem.

"So, how are your singing skills?" Saltman jokes.

Johnson just leans back and laughs, shaking her head and taking a sip of her coffee.

Judice, dressed head-to-toe in light denim, broken up by a pair of brown boots, smiles.

"What I like about the shows is that they're so low-key," he says.

"No one worries, or flusters."

-- -- --

And rightly so. As proven by Seeger's arrival five minutes later, at about 7:10 p.m., there's nothing to worry about. After the eclectic group of guests --young and old, dressed in everything from sport coats and skirts to jeans and flannels--are let in, they mingle, eating cookies, drinking coffee and talking.

But soon the lights flicker twice, a cue for everyone to take their seats and a signal that the volunteers' work -- for now, at least -- is done.

"Good evening! It's wonderful to see you all here. We have a wonderful show for you tonight," says master of ceremonies Vera Mark, who stands at the front of the stage and clutches a slender pile of manila folders to her chest.

"If you want to see how music is made, and want to get to know the artists who make this music, please consider volunteering."

She pauses, scanning the eager crowd.

"But more on that later. I want to get down to the music -- to the women we have here tonight."

After Mark's introduction, Cook performs a four-song set of unaccompanied, narrative songs and, following a short break, Seeger takes the stage for her first of two sets. She takes requests, stops in the middle of songs to tell stories and converses with the audience on more occasion than one. Supported by the empty closure created by the room's high cream-colored walls, the simply orchestrated, completely raw folk songs hit the audience like surround sound. The tapping of Seeger's comfortable, navy blue fisherman style sandals acts as its own drum beat, and the voices of the audience sing strong, if not unified, back up vocals as they join in on the chorus. Even the laughter drawn from some of the humorous lines in the old-fashioned, traditional tunes adds to the musical onslaught, like its own instrument harmonizing with the simple melodies and foot-tapping beat.

At one point, another one of these sounds -- the audience's applause -- sends Seeger on a tangent about the process of clapping, explaining that it's a chain reaction that gradually tapers off as one person takes cues from another that it's time to stop.

"There's a group action going on here," she says.

"I want you to treasure it."

This group action occurs for the last time just shortly after 10 p.m., when Seeger finishes her final song and the tired crowd rises slowly to its feet for a standing ovation. Most prepare to head home, but a few odd volunteers breeze through the aisles, collecting plastic foam coffee cups and tea-stained napkins from the floor as everyone else gathers coats and belongings. One by one, the chairs are folded and carried, the water heaters are emptied and packed away, and the plants and decorations are brought out of hiding. The transformation process continues until, about an hour later, no more physical reminders of the "jam-packed, 100-seat living room" remain, freeing the volunteers to finally return home roughly five hours after arriving. They turn out the lights, exit through the foyer and shut the hunter green front doors behind them, all the while knowing that the separation will only be temporary.

Another night of hard work and good music is already brewing, just a couple of weeks down the road.