How-to

Faux Oil Paintings

By Eric Hart | Published: January 29, 2010

Our upcoming production of Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson has a gallery in the audience of 19 portraits. These were described as oil paintings of “dead white guys”. We decided to begin experimenting with printing these portraits out and seeing how we can make them look more like a painted canvas. I decided to try some [...]

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More on a Wooden Table

By Eric Hart | Published: December 4, 2009

In the previous post, I spoke about the wooden table we were building for The Last Cargo Cult. Jay Duckworth started off with a coat of darker stain to catch the raised grain and really accentuate it. He went over the whole thing again with a lighter shade. After it appeared on stage during tech [...]

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A wooden table

By Eric Hart | Published: December 2, 2009

The last show for the calendar year at the Public Theatre is Mike Daisey‘s “The Last Cargo Cult”. We needed to construct a new table to match the design of the world. The design called for a solid, fairly sturdy-looking wooden table, which showed some character and a lot of age. The table top was made [...]

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Making a Breakable Glass

By Eric Hart | Published: October 5, 2009

I’m props mastering a show called “Slave Shack”, at the Algonquin Theatre in the Gramercy Park area. One of the scenes calls for the actress to fling a scotch glass against the wall, where it breaks. I decided to buy a number of thin glasses and spray them with Plasti-Dip. It’s a rubber coating which [...]

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Gnome Building

By Eric Hart | Published: August 31, 2009

For the upcoming production of “Broke-ology” at Lincoln Center, I was asked to build a three-foot garden gnome. They had a prop from the original production at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, but it was starting to break and crack in certain places. The gnome undergoes a lot of abuse during each performance, so they needed [...]

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  • About

    Eric Hart

    I am Eric Hart, former assistant props master at the Public Theater in New York City, and a longtime prop maker.

    This site is a way to share my work and the things I've learned over the years. It's also a way to connect with other prop makers, props masters, and artisans, as well as a collection of all things of interest to props people from around the internet.

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