Traveling and unpacking have kept me from delving deep into my own writing, but the internet still has plenty of interesting things for the props person.
I almost missed this the first time around, but Erich Friend highlighted some new fake candles on this Theatre Safety Blog. These were designed and patented by Disney Imagineers to go in the newly renovated Haunted Mansion. They look much more like real candles than previous versions, especially up close (at least, they do in the videos). I hope the price is right when they finally become available in the US.
I am in North Carolina for a few more days, but return to New York City next week, so I will have more time (and a real computer) to spend on writing. Until then, here are some useful sites to satisfy your prop-reading needs:
PDN’s Photo of the Day has some wonderful photographs of Pamplona’s San Fermin festival, where giant puppets run around beating children.
Speaking of puppets, Project Puppet has a great tutorial on adding facial features to your puppet characters. It covers everything from cutting the shapes out of soft foam, to patterning and covering them with fleece.
Rich Dionne continues his series on budget estimates in theatre with one of the hardest variables to estimate: the cost of labor to complete a project.
The 3rd Annual Props Summit will take place Friday, August 26 at the Public Theater Prop Shop in New York City. Shoot me an email if you are interested in coming. This year, Jay Duckworth has secured a guest speaker. Here is what he says:
We have secured our speaker, J. Allen Suddeth. He has worked profession​ally for the past thirty years out of the New York area. For Broadway, he has staged fights for Gem Of The Ocean, Saturday Night Fever, Jekyll & Hyde, Angels in America Part One and Two, Loot, Saint Joan, A Small Family Business, and Hide and Seek. Off-Broadway he has worked on production​s for The Manhattan Theater Club, Playwright​s Horizons, The New Group, Theater For A New Audience, The Public Theater, BAM, Second Stage, Riverside Shakespear​e, Jean Cocteau Repertory,​ The Pearl Theater, and the New York Theater Workshop.
Allen has trained actors for The Juilliard School, Mason Gross School of The Arts at Rutgers University​, The Lee Strasberg Institute,​ S.U.N.Y. Purchase, and The Stella Adler Conservato​ry, as well as being a frequent guest artist at major universiti​es in the US and abroad. For television​, he has staged action sequences for over 750 programs on ABC, CBS, NBC, and HBO. He is the author of Fight Directing For The Theater, published by Heinemann Press. Allen has also taught at the National Stage Combat Workshop, currently at UNCSA, for twelve years, and is the founder of the National Fight Directors Training Program. Allen is also a producer of The Complete Unarmed Stage Combat DVD Library. He is ranked as one of fifteen recognized​ Fight Masters in the United States by The Society of American Fight Directors.
Exciting, right? So come on down and join your fellow prop masters, artisans, shoppers and runners for a night of fun and learning.
Does this book have anything to do with props people? Sure. Though it is geared towards the theatrical designers, both prop masters and artisans working in the freelance world need the advice and information presented within. Further, the job title of “properties designer” is becoming more prevalent in today’s theatrical world.
The first six chapters are on the technical aspects of running a business: accounting, staffing, offices, etc. A lot of this seems out of the realm of the average freelance props person. On the other hand, you will probably need some of the information at least once in your career. Even if you never have a full-time staff (very few freelance prop masters do), you will on occasion have an assistant or need to hire some outside help for some jobs. You may think you do not need an office, but if you have a shop, it might serve the same purpose. The information presented in these chapters is dense, and not meant to be read all at once in one sitting. Rather, it is a great reference to keep close by and refer to as needed.
Perhaps the only main deviation between the business of a theatrical designer and a props artisan is that theatrical design is mostly a service industry (according to Moody) while a props artisan mixes elements of manufacturing and service.
The next few chapters feel more directly applicable to the props freelancer. It deals with marketing yourself, networking, job interviews and dressing for success. Sure, you can find this kind of information elsewhere, but most of it seems geared towards bankers and mid-level managers applying for cattle calls at large corporations. This book deals with all the quirks and idiosyncrasies of getting jobs in the world of theatre and entertainment design. It also devotes some time to dealing with the aspects of the job not typically covered in other books about theatre work, such as conflict resolution and group dynamics.
This book does have a few flaws. It is fairly US-centric when dealing with specifics about legal topics, business culture, contracts and unions. Though only written in 2002, it is a touch outdated when it comes to technology and the internet; I don’t think I would suggest to anyone to carry around a CD of your work, especially when thumb drives and jump drives can hold so much more information in a much smaller space and work on nearly every computer (some newer laptops and tablets don’t even come with a CD drive). I also think an internet presence is more of a necessity these days. Employers are incredibly likely to run an internet search on you when you are applying for a job or a gig; even if you do not have a website, you should run an internet search on yourself to see what they would see.
This book fills the gaps in theatre education for the all important considerations of the business side of show business. Maybe your education did not give you the chance to take business classes while enrolled, or maybe you did not find yourself working as a professional freelancer until well after your formal education ended. In any case, The Business of Theatrical Design covers such a broad range of information not found elsewhere that makes this a must-have for anyone wanting to make a living in theatre.
Making and finding props for theatre, film, and hobbies
, by James L. Moody.