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I am Eric Hart, the 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.
It’s Props Month at Stage Directions
This month’s issue of Stage Directions has a special section on props. One of the articles, “Prop Shop Confidential” by Lisa Mulcahy, is about maintaining a props stock. This is a good companion to my own post on which props to keep and which to trash; it features a lot more thoughts on how to organize a prop storage space from a variety of prop masters around the country. It also touches a bit on keeping track of your inventory, as well as how to provide the props for a show.
Looking at that somehow led me to the homepage for the Dramatics magazine. If you’re not familiar with it, it is a magazine aimed toward high school theatre students. They have published a number of technical theatre articles over the years, including a few useful for props people. They have the full text of these articles on their website, but it’s a real bear to use; I hope they won’t mind that I link directly to the PDFs.