New York Public Library Digital Galleries

Miss Fanny Kemble as Portia in the Merchant of Venice
Miss Fanny Kemble as Portia in the Merchant of Venice

As a props person, you’re always looking online for images, whether as research for pieces, inspiration for set dressing, or as elements for a paper prop.

The New York Public Library has a great digitized collection of images in their Digital Gallery.  Some proptacular highlights include cigarette cards from pre-1900s to the mid-20th century; dust jackets from American and European books, 1926-1947; decoration in the Age of Napoleon; and  a collection of restaurant menus from 1851 to 1930.

There is also a ton of theatre-related photographs and ephemera, such as the Vandamm Studio Photographs of theatre productions and players from 1900 to 1957.

These digital galleries have so much visual reference and research; I highly recommend taking the time to look through it all and bookmarking or taking note of what you might find useful in the future.

Dragon Skin

This week, at the Public Theatre, we begin working on some props for The Bacchae. Since there is going to be a dead corpse which is picked apart and torn up on stage, Jay Duckworth has ordered some “Dragon Skin” from Smooth-On to experiment with.

Many of us in the props world are familiar with Smooth-On and their range of products for molding and casting. My father, a potter in Pennsylvania, has been using their polyurethane for years in his mold-making, and they’ve really pushed some new products for theatrical purposes in the past decade or so.

A Silicone Severed Head
A Silicone Severed Head

But wait, there’s more! Their website isn’t just some bland information portal. They have a treasure trove of guides, tutorials, and instructions for using their products. On the special effects and propmaking section you can find step-by-step video sequences, photo sequences, and examples of what other people have done with their products.

You can also find a Smooth-On video channel over at YouTube. This contains many of the same videos showing molding and casting with their products as their website. They also have a list of “Favorites” showing videos from other users making and casting molds.

Curious Stage Props

Curious Stage “Props” Made of German Substitutes

Artful substitution of new materials for old ones that cannot be obtained, a trick Germany learned during the war, has now extended to the stage properties used in that country, with some queer results. Shapes made of thin paper and blown up with air are adapted to all sorts of settings, from rocks and trees to pianos, and serve their purpose so long as no forgetful actor leans against them. “Props” of this kind have at least the advantage of compactness and light weight. Luxurious-looking rugs and hangings are made by a new and economical process of printing on fabric. One attraction has a property tree, so made, of paper and wire, that it can be adjusted to any height, from a bush up. In another case, a real field of waving grain is transported to the stage by gluing straws to folding sections of flat base, the whole being fireproofed. Some interesting new cloud effects are produced, presumably by the optical projection of chemical-vapor images.

Popular Mechanics Magazine, December 1920. Vol. 34, No. 6

Nathan Santucci

photograph by Leila Navidi
photograph by Leila Navidi

The Las Vegas Sun has a little article about Nathan Santucci, the prop-builder for Penn and Teller.

Good ‘magic’ is bloody science – Las Vegas Sun.

Santucci – who has many skills, including woodworking, plastic working, milling, welding, painting and SCUBA diving for underwater props – spends most of his days with blood on his hands and his clothes and the seat of his car. It gets everywhere.

Mostly this is because of the trick where the guys use a timber mill-size circular saw to cut their lovely assistant in half.

The article also has a great story about a fake snake.

I’ve always thought trick props can be approached in the same way as magic props. Building a prop for a stage illusion requires the same sort of creative thinking and knowledge of mechanics, pneumatics, electronics, and other control systems.

Unfortunately, information about magic is a closely guarded secret. Information in books tends to focus on sleight-of-hand tricks, or well-known illusions. Magic websites suffer from being overwhelmed by spam sites, link farms, and plain old con jobs.

Surprisingly (or not), some of the best information on these kinds of tricks can be found on DIY Halloween decoration websites.

Making and finding props for theatre, film, and hobbies