Download The prop shop

The prop shop
BY MIKE LAWLER
From omelets to armoires, they’re
responsible for the stuff that
makes up the world of the play
IN ONE SENSE props is a shortened version of the slang
noun propers—which means, basically, respect. For a
classic example of its use, just have a listen to Aretha
Franklin’s seminal soul rendition of “Respect,” in which
she advises her man he had better be ready to give her
her propers when she gets home.
In the theatre, though, props is an abbreviation of the word properties, as
in stage properties. It is a fitting if
generally overlooked coincidence,
because those toiling in the land of
stage props certainly deserve their
share of, well, props.
Stage properties include hand
props, set dressing, costume accessories, furniture—actually just about everything that appears on the stage
that’s not an actor, costume, dog, or
element of the set. A theatre’s props
department consists of a department
head (known as the master or mistress, manager, director, or designer)
and any number of props artisans with
diverse skills. The number of artisans
working in a shop and their properties
specialties will depend largely on the
size and budget of the theatre, the
length of the season, and the skills
and needs of the props master.
Jim Guy, properties director of Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, has a fulltime prop staff that includes a carpenter, a shopper, a soft props specialist,
a crafts specialist, a graphics specialist,
and one person who works in many
different areas, including electronics.
This enables Guy to concentrate on
DRAMATICS • OCTOBER 2006
the bigger picture, dealing directly
with designers, directors, budgets
and—his favorite part of the job—set
decoration.
“Set decoration can and should be
really rich and detail-oriented. It can
be a major contributor to the effect
that the play has,” he says.
Other props departments throughout the country have shops that are
variations on Guy’s setup at Milwaukee Rep, but not all have the budgets
to retain such diverse staff. In smaller
shops the props master has a very
hands-on job.
All props departments, regardless of
the theatre, are responsible for a wide
range of tasks. “I need to be a master
of every trade,” says Michelle Moody,
properties manager of PlayMakers
Repertory Company in Chapel Hill,
North Carolina from 2003 to 2006,
and now a freelance prop artisan
who is working for the Tulsa Opera
this fall. “The ultimate properties
manager is comfortable painting,
building, welding, sewing, shopping,
carving, electrifying, and going to
meetings.”
Aside from the actors themselves,
every physical item that appears on
stage is covered by three departments: scenery, costumes, and props.
Any prop that is carried by an actor
(known as a hand prop) is the responsibility of the prop shop; any
piece of set dressing, including furniture, that is not built by the scene
shop is built, found, or refurbished by
the prop shop; any costume accessory not built by the costume shop
(such as a walking cane), is provided
by the prop shop. Members of the
prop shop are also responsible for
food that appears on stage, even
overseeing its preparation. Each and
every prop must also be researched
JAY WESTHAUSER
thoroughly to ensure its authenticity
in terms of the era and specifications
in the text.
A typical properties department
will have a storage room full of stock
props, including furniture, weapons,
soft goods, and most everything else
you can imagine. Ideally, they will
also have a shop equipped with tools
to build items that may range in size
from large furniture to the smallest
bag or coin.
Works well with others
The work of a props department is
perhaps the most diverse area of a
theatre’s production team. Properties personnel are faced with making decisions on how to handle
sometimes very elaborate and difficult tasks.
“Props is the area of theatre that I believe—more than any other—crosses
over, or is affected by, the other areas of theatre,” says Guy, who has
run the prop shop at Milwaukee
Rep since 1998. Props people have
to be nimble and able to think
quickly on their feet, because the
obstacles they must overcome to
prop a show will crop up in many
different areas.
Much of the furniture was airborne in
Todd Rosenthal’s design for Milwaukee
Rep’s production of A Month in the Country last spring. “We spent three straight
days rigging furniture and dressing it in
the air,” props manager Jim Guy said.
“This is my adult life.”
OCTOBER 2006 • DRAMATICS
JEFFREY PHELPS / MILWAUKEE JOURNAL-SENTINEL
standards that will allow their use in
virtually any situation. “Our assumption is that everything is going to be
played as if the audience is going to
breathe on it.”
Like the costume shop, the props
department works closely with performers in order to meet their
needs—at times altering designs in
order to increase comfort, accommodate disabilities, and more precisely
fit the demands of the production.
Guy recognizes that the props
department’s work can enhance an
actor’s performance and thus the
power of the production itself. “It
helps them get into and stay in character and feel supported by the stuff
that’s around them,” he says.
Guy on the set of Milwaukee Rep’s production of A Skull in Connemara, by Martin
McDonagh, in 2002. “Two graves were
dug up nightly, and the skeletal remains
of three people were removed and then
smashed to bits with wooden mallets,”
Guy says. The prop shop made more than
1,200 fake, smashable bones for the run
of the show. “The dirt in the graves was
actually a mix of four colors of granulated rubber, dyed bark chips, and hemp
fiber. It’s lighter than real dirt, it’s virtually dust free, and it sounds great when
you sink a spade into it.”
Props may affect costumes, scenery, lighting, and stage management,
so the work of the prop shop requires effective communication with
designers, directors, stage managers,
technical directors, production managers, and costume directors. Off the
top of his head, Guy cites a few typical questions that have roots in other
departments.
“Will the armoire fit through this
door for the scene shift? Is the top of
this coffee table too reflective? Does
this have to be a battery-operated
lamp on the desk? Does the sword
goof up the hang of the coat? Is the
gun too big or too heavy to put into a
pocket? We go everyplace.”
What this means, in short, is that
superb communication skills are a
must for the properties director. “I
find that sharing information with evDRAMATICS • OCTOBER 2006
Technology and props
eryone is usually the best approach,”
says Moody.
Jennifer Stearns-Gleeson, props
manager for Centerstage in Baltimore,
agrees that communication throughout the process is essential. “You
have to stay on top of this, or you will
be wasting a lot of time working in a
bubble that will burst once all the
parts come together in tech,” she says.
Not unlike technical theatre in
general, props is all about being prepared. “There’s no guarantee when
they ask for something in rehearsal,
and then say, ‘Oh, but it’s going to be
all the way upstage, and nobody’s
ever going to stand on this chair,’”
says Guy. “You get to third tech, and
all of a sudden, [somebody says]
‘wouldn’t it be cool if...’ ” Thus he
makes certain the props that come
out of his shop are built to exacting
“Low tech,” says Guy, “is best tech.”
Guy is for the most part immune to
the charms of computer-controlled
prop gadgetry. “We do use a fair
amount of radio control and pneumatics, and a little bit of hydraulics,”
he admits, “but we’re not doing anything with computer-controlled devices. When we start to introduce
computerized stuff for use on stage,
that adds a level of complication that
I think we can generally do without.”
Which is not to say that Guy’s
prop staff doesn’t use computers.
They do, a lot, especially for graphics
work. They create custom newspapers and magazines, and even reproduce famous paintings—sometimes
altering the images to fit the design
concept. “We just morphed our leading lady’s face into a pre-Raphaelite
painting,” he tells me.
Guy believes that technology such
as this is best used in the service of
the performer, who can hold a realistic newspaper or periodical and feel
more in the world of a period piece.
“A few years ago we did Last Night
at Ballyhoo, and that opens in Atlanta, Georgia in 1939 on the weekend that Gone With The Wind premiered,” he says. “We were able to
exactly reproduce the December 22,
1939 Atlanta Journal-Constitution. So
the actor actually had in his hand the
D
SA ND Y UN DE
RW OO
A job description
“PROPS ARE THERE every step of the
way,” says Jennifer StearnsGleeson, props manager for
Centerstage in Baltimore.
The first step a props master will
take is to read the play at hand,
marking any part of the text that
will affect his or her department,
and making lists of props that may
be needed. This will include items
that are not explicit in the text, but
which have been alluded to—such
as food for characters at the table
in a dinner scene. The director and
designer may also contribute to the
list of necessary props, based on
their concepts. Once the final list
has been compiled, the props manager must determine whether any
props will be the responsibility of
another department, such as the
scene or costume shops. Such decisions are based on many factors,
such as the size and capabilities of
the various departments and a particular theatre’s structure of responsibility.
Then, the building and gathering
process begins. By this time the
props manager has
determined what props
will be built, purchased, pulled from
stock, or rented. During the build process
the props master will
provide any necessary rehearsal props
to the stage manager. These stand-in
props are nearly as important as the
real ones, because actors will use this
time to discover the physicality of the
props during their performance.
Therefore, the closer the rehearsal
prop is to the final product, the better.
Once the build process is over, the
props master will turn the actual
props over to the stage manager or
the assistant stage manager (the person who is usually in charge of props
during the performance run). The
props master will go over the use and
maintenance of the props, and will
train the stage managers in the safe
use of any weapons that may be included in the show’s props.
–M.L.
newspaper the character would have
read that day.”
And Guy’s shop will use gadgetry
on stage when it serves the show. For
a 2004 production of Richard III, the
director wanted a prop corpse to ooze
blood during a scene. Guy’s shop
rigged the body, which was fitted with
a cast face of an actor in the show,
with a blood reservoir and a small, almost silent twelve-volt pump activated
by radio control. The fabric of the
corpse’s costume was specially
treated to help the stage blood spread
rapidly.“That body bled on cue,” Guy
says.
“My goal is to hire people who are
better at what they do than I am at
what they do,” Guy explains.
Having the right staff enables leaders like Guy to give accurate cost and
time estimates. It also gives the shop
a reputation for quality and craftsmanship that lends itself to trust on
the part of other production personnel such as the production manager
and technical director. “My job is to
know enough about what the people
in my shop do, to be able ask them
realistically to do things, and know
what their process is,” says Guy. He
also believes that fostering the proper
creative atmosphere is essential to getting the most out of his prop team.
“We respect these individuals as artists. They feel invested in what goes
on stage.”
Guy is fortunate to work at a wellestablished LORT theatre that has an
annual operating budget of over $9
The shop
An ideal props department may not
exist, but good props masters know
what they need in order to supplement their own skills as well as free
up their time so they can deal with
the logistics of running the shop.
Props were a vital storytelling element of
Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati’s production of Ron Hutchinson’s Moonlight and
Magnolias last spring. The comedy recounts the story of the marathon writing
sessions to adapt Gone With the Wind as
a screenplay. According to legend, producer David O. Selznick locked writer
Ben Hecht and director Victor Fleming in
his office, forcing them to subsist on peanuts and bananas, until the script was
completed. Director Drew Fracher and
properties master Shannon Rae Lutz used
the increasingly dense accumulations of
peanut shells, banana peels, and
crumpled typescript to show the passage of
time and the mounting frustration in the
room. David Arden Engel, in the foreground, plays Hecht; William McNulty is
Fleming.
million. But not all theatres can afford
seven full-time staff members in the
prop shop, as Milwaukee Rep has. At
Playmakers Rep, things are different.
The theatre, which is part of the University of North Carolina’s Department of Dramatic Art, operates on a
budget of just over $1 million, and so
is able to employ only a properties
manager and one prop carpenter and
welder full time. A student assistant
and work-study part-timers help fill in
the gaps.
“Props departments are often forgotten when planning a theatre, I’ve
decided,” says Moody. Guy, for his
part, seems to agree. “There is only
so much money to go around,” he
says.
Props training
“A good props person can always get
work,” Guy believes. What type of
formal training, if any, a props artisan
OCTOBER 2006 • DRAMATICS
should seek, on the other hand, is a
more difficult subject. Guy, who began the M.F.A. props program at the
University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign in 1991 and headed it until 1998, points out the advantages of
graduate study.
“If you go into the right program,
you can benefit from the experience
of someone who was or is a professional in the field,” he says. “And you
have the safety net of the academic
world. That is, you are allowed to
fail.” He explains that the diversity
of training in a typical three-year
graduate program can provide the
student with a much broader base of
experience than could possibly be
gained in the same amount of time in
the professional world.
Graduate training is not the norm
among prop artisans, though. “Most
prop people I have found probably
have undergrad degrees from theatre
departments, and then they earn while
they learn,” Guy tells me. “They learn
the job on the job.”
“There are very few students who
have more than a passing interest in
props once they learn how much
work goes into it,” says Moody, who
graduated from West Virginia University with an M.F.A. in scenic and properties design—a common discipline
coupling. “Those that do want to continue usually have a props temperament.”
No matter how much training you
have before you take your first prop
shop job, Moody has some final advice:
“Make sure you get paid for it once
you’re out of school,” she warns. “There
are too many people who will take advantage of your desire to learn—and the
truth is, there are very few people who
know how to do props.” ▼
DRAMATICS • OCTOBER 2006
Originally published in Dramatics magazine. More info: Schooltheatre.org