Tag Archives: public theatre

Leaving New York City

Today is my last day as the assistant props master at the Public Theater, and on Monday, I’ll be gone from New York City as well. I’ve been planning this for some time; my wife has been teaching scene design down at Elon University for the past year and a half, and when her position became more permanent, I decided to finish up the autumn productions up and move down there with her. A year and a half is long time to be  over five hundred miles apart.

It’s been amazing working at the Public Theater. First of all, it has such a rich history. This is the theatre where Hair and Chorus Line debuted. This has been one of the focal institutions for downtown New York Theatre for half of a century. More important than its history though is its continuing contribution to New York theatre.

I’ve gotten to work with designers like John Lee Beatty, John Conklin, and Eugene Lee; these are designers I studied in college a decade ago. The same is true of writers like Suzan-Lori Parks, Tony Kushner, and Christopher Durang, all of whom were required reading in at least one of my classes. I also got to work with all sorts of up and coming designers, such as Mark Wendland, Donyale Werle and Scott Pask. Of course, I’ve worked on shows with great directors as well, including Daniel Sullivan, David Esbjornson, Michael Greif, JoAnne Akalitis, Alex Timbers, Richard Foreman. The list goes on.

More importantly, my colleagues were an amazing part of my time there. Our artistic director often remarked that we were the “best staff in the American theatre”. I don’t know if I’m qualified to say whether it is the “best” or not, but I can certainly say that the production staff there is one of the great production departments in the world of theatre. It was a blessing and a challenge to be able to work with equals rather than having to be the smartest one in the room (ha ha, I’m very modest).

I also feel that being at the Public has reaffirmed by belief in the necessity of theatre. Theatre is predicated on the fact that there is a performer and there is an audience and they have to be in the same space. You cannot package it, commoditize it and distribute it; you have to be there, you have to put the time in, and you have to listen. It is an art form that acknowledges that we are our relationships with other people, and that storytelling is more than just consuming something on a screen. Much of what the Public does is exciting from the tightly-packed, creaky room where the Belarus Free Theatre performed their heartbreaking work which made them criminals by their totalitarian government, to the palpable electricity caused by 1800 people quieting down as the show begins in the open-air Delacorte Theater in the middle of Central Park.

Of course, I am excited by my new adventure. I will have my own workshop. Though tiny, it is more than I’ve ever had. I am of course, hard at work on my book. After the holidays, I already have a bit of work lined up at PlayMakers Rep building some props for their Shakespeare shows (I’m good at Shakespeare props). This blog will certainly soldier on. I actually began it before I ever worked in the Public Theater’s prop shop! Hard to believe.

Preparing for King Lear

Tech rehearsals for the Public Theater’s production of King Lear start this Thursday, and we are busy as ever in the props shop. My life is busy as ever between writing my book, preparing for Lear, tech rehearsals for Mike Daisey’s The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs, and some minor revolution in New York City. So I don’t have much to write, but I do have a sampling of photographs of some of the props we are constructing for King Lear.

Jay Duckworth working on the map table
Jay Duckworth working on the map table

The “map” in our production is a tabletop topographical model of Lear’s kingdom. King Lear, played by Sam Waterston , actually kicks the whole table over, and pieces of the map break off. At least, that’s our goal. Besides Jay, a lot of the work has been undertaken by Fran Maxwell, with some help by Sara Swanberg and Raphael Mishler.

Partially finished dead pheasant
Partially finished dead pheasant

We need a variety of dead game for Lear’s men when they return from hunting. After last spring’s Timon of Athens, I already knew we had nothing decent in stock nor anything worth renting in the city, so we had to make some. Pictured above is my first attempt at building one from scratch and covering it in hackle pads and feathers. We then found complete pheasant hides, so we started using those as coverings, which freed us from having to glue individual feathers all over the bodies.

A sheep in wolf's clothing
A sheep in wolf's clothing

In addition to the pheasants and some rabbits, they wanted a larger dead animal as well. We gave them my fake dead lamb for rehearsals, which longtime readers may remember from last year. We then located the hide of a jackal which turned out to be nearly the same size as the lamb, so rather than construct a new dead animal, Sara Swanberg just set off covering the lamb with the jackal hide.

We have more cool stuff coming up, such as Michael McKean’s eyes which get torn out of his head. That should be quite a sight!

Public Theater Fire Drill

On March 25, 1911, 146 workers perished in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, one of the deadliest industrial accidents in US history. One hundred years later to the day, and only three blocks over, me and my fellow coworkers at the Public Theater found ourselves evacuating our building during a fire alarm.

Employees of the Public Theater during a fire drill on March 25, 2011. Photograph by Jay Duckworth
Employees of the Public Theater during a fire drill on March 25, 2011. Photograph by Jay Duckworth

I’m not sure whether this was a fire drill, an alarm tripped because of construction or an actual fire situation. Whatever the reason, it stood as a good reminder of the necessity for fire drills as part of any theatre’s fire safety plan. The next time the alarm’ go off, everyone who was part of this evacuation will remember what to do and respond more quickly. As long as these drills happen regularly, enough people will know what to do and be able to guide any new employees and visiting artists to safety.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire was such a horrible accident due to gross negligence and mistreatment of the workers on the part of the owners. I try not to inject politics into this blog, but the following statement is more fact than opinion: unions have had a large part in improving workplace safety for all workers, both union and non, so that such incidents are less likely to happen today. Nancy Goldstein does a good job of summarizing the lessons learned from the Triangle Factory fire.

This is not an article about unions though; it is about fire safety. Fire drills such as the one we experienced are just one part of a complete fire safety plan in a theatre.

Some directors and producers seem downright offended when they feel they must compromise their production to facilitate fire regulations. “Why can’t we cover these exit signs?” “Why can’t we place this scenery in front of these doors?” “Why can’t these doors remain propped open?”

Yes, it may seem silly to have to follow all these often inconvenient regulations even though the building is not currently on fire. That’s the point; you can’t suddenly uncover the exit signs, clear the paths and tell your employees where to go once a fire starts. It’s like skydiving; for the majority of the trip, you’ll be fine without a parachute. But if you don’t wear one on the way out the plane, that last little bit at the end is going to hurt a lot.

The reporters at Backstage Jobs have already done a fine job of covering theatre fire safety in the past few months. Last December was the anniversary of one of the worst theatre fires in American history; the Iroquois Theatre fire in Chicago claimed 602 lives. In “Lest we forget…“, Patrick Hudson writes:

Some exit doors were covered by drapes; some opened inward; some were “decorative” and not actually exits; some opened onto incomplete fire escapes (patrons fell or jumped to their deaths on the brick paved alley below, piling up to the point where their bodies created enough of a cushion to allow others to survive the fall) some were simply locked…

[W]hen stagehands and performers opened the stage door to escape, fresh air was supplied to the fire, which flashed over into the house (as there was no fire curtain to stop it, or open loft to chimney it) toward the open exit doors at the top of the balcony. Those that were not killed outright (some decapitated by the force) understandably panicked and joined in the push for the doors. Many were crushed or trampled, most were then killed by the smoke and fumes. When firefighters entered the theatre, an estimated 15 minutes after the fire had started, bodies of those who died at some of the exits were piled seven deep. Over 200 of those killed were young children. In some cases, entire families were killed.

What is particularly striking in all of these examples is how the disregard of fire safety rules and practices is the key factor. Hudson writes, “While some new laws were enacted in the aftermath, most of the problems were the result of violations of the existing laws.” You can say “new buildings are safer than old ones” or “we have better laws now” or “we’re smarter than people back then” or any number of commonly-heard excuses, but they do not hold up to the reality of the situation. The Iroquois Theater fire happened in a building that was brand new. Many of the factors which amplified the fire were due not to lack of knowledge or old technology, but by the fact that the current rules, regulations and technology were not being used. In other words, the fire could have been kept under control or even avoided even with the weaker laws and technology of the time.

Fire regulations do not stop fires from spreading. You need to implement these fire regulations and enforce them to actually have an effect. Hudson concludes his article with a list of basic fire safety equipment and procedures for theatres.

In a subsequent article, Backstage Jobs reminds us that “Fires happen in theatres. Really. Even now“. He shows a sampling of 14 theatres destroyed or damaged by fires in just the past 10 years. It is also just over a month since the eighth anniversary of the Station Fire in Rhode Island, in which one hundred people died because a small group of people chose to ignore basic fire regulations.

I hope you read all of this and take it to heart. The next time a director asks you to cover an exit sign, imagine telling a parent whose child was decapitated and burned alive that it was worth it because the lighting looked so much better.

Changes aHead

The Bacchae opens this Monday in Central Park. For those of you who follow this blog, you’ve seen some of the cool work we’ve been doing in the prop shop for this show. Let me say, it wasn’t easy.

I’ve arranged a small series of the various states and stages the head of Pentheus went through.

The first skull prototype
The first skull prototype
The head of King Pentheus
The head of King Pentheus
Head with cast of Anthony Mackie's face
Head with cast of Anthony Mackie's face
After the face was torn off
After the face was torn off
Final head
Final head

Changed are inevitable when making props. It always seems to be the nicest or most interesting prop you’ve been working on; after spending days or even weeks perfecting what will become the highlight of your portfolio, the prop gets cut, or worse, attacked with hot glue and gaff tape.

It’s natural, and preferable, to be proud of what you build. However, we must also remember that the production is the ultimate goal of our work. If a prop needs to be sacrificed for the show, let it happen. You can never be so attached to a prop that you place it ahead of the needs of the production.

Blood Sponges

We are in the midst of tech rehearsal for The Bacchae here at Shakespeare in the Park; next weekend, we begin preview performances already, and opening night is on August 24th. Needless to say, I’m a little distracted.

Here’s a quick little video showing some “blood sponges” we were working on with the body. You can read more about the body in my previous posts, a Body for Bacchae: Part One and Part Two. We glued some sponges to parts of the body. The idea was that they could be filled with fake blood before the performance. When the actress portraying Agave cradled the corpse, she could squeeze the part of the body with a sponge and have blood run down her hand on cue.