In fields such as graphic design, design briefs are used to define the scope of the project. A design brief is a collection of information defining the intended results of a project, as opposed to the aesthetics.
A good prop master or artisan has internalized the process of creating a design brief. The most important consideration in determining the construction of a prop is figuring out what the prop needs to do. For more complicated props, it may be helpful to actually create a design brief.
The first and most important part is asking questions to determine a prop’s needs. Suppose you want to create a table. Your questions may include:
How tall does it need to be?
What size is the top?
How is it used?
What is the finish on the table? Stain? Paint? Raw material?
What material is it made out of? More appropriately, what material is it supposed to look like it is made out of?
Most props artisans know that when a table is requested, you should automatically ask the following questions as well:
Will actors be climbing on top of it?
Will actors be dancing and jumping on top of it?
How many actors at a time will be on it?
I swear, some directors only want tables so they have a place for actors to dance.
If you were just building a regular table, the information you need for your design brief may be complete. As this is a theatrical table, you have some additional questions to ask:
How does it need to come on and off stage?
Where is it stored backstage?
Where is it being built?
Why does the last question matter? Most props are built in one location (the prop shop) and transported to another location (the stage). Whenever you are transporting an item, it needs to fit through the smallest opening in that path. Often that is a doorway or an elevator. If the stage is on the second floor of a theatre with only a tiny passenger elevator, you need to build the table so it fits in the elevator and can be reassembled once on stage.
Other props will have different questions to ask. The important thing is to determine exactly what a prop needs to do.
Tables are a type of furniture which have innumerable variations, types and styles. Nonetheless, some basic parts show up in the majority of tables, especially the kinds which find their way onto the theatrical stage. Knowing the names of these parts is helpful for facilitating communication between designers, artisans and other members of the team; if the set designer asks for the apron to be smaller, you want to know which part you should change. What follows is some quick definitions of the parts in the illustration above.
top – the flat surface of a table
apron, skirt or frieze – the under-framing which connects the legs to the top
leg – the main vertical piece which supports the top and raises it off the floor
knee – the upper portion of the leg
foot – the bottom part of the leg which touches the floor. A table may have completely straight legs with no distinct knee or foot.
drop leaf – a portion of the top which overextends the apron and can be hinged down to take up less space when not in use
stretcher – cross pieces which connect the legs to add strength and stability. Some common configurations of stretchers include the H stretcher, X stretcher, and box stretcher.
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
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.
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.
The lobby of the McKittrick Hotel, where "Sleep No More" is set
This week, I took a chance to watch Punchdrunk‘s current New York City production of Sleep No More. You may remember I previously wrote about Punchdrunk when I showed some Art Deco footlights I constructed for this production. I do not normally write about productions I see, but this was such a unique experience with a heavy reliance on props, so I thought I’d share.
First, some background. Punchdrunk is a British theatre troupe known for their immersive brand of promenade theatre. The actors are interspersed throughout a venue, and the audience is free to walk around and watch whichever scenes they wish, or just explore the space on their own. For Sleep No More, Punchdrunk has taken a set of three connected warehouses and lofts in Chelsea (former site of one of the super clubs back in the day) and transformed all six floors into a noir-ish world straight out of Hitchcock’s Rebecca, with many of the story elements from Macbeth. In other words, it’s “Shakespeare in the Dark”. The audience is given white masks to hide their faces, brought up an elevator in small groups, and set loose to explore the world and pick up pieces of the story. Hundreds of rooms have been created with literally thousands of props, with excruciating levels of detail. You can wander into a room which looks like an office, open a drawer in a desk, open a book, and find a scrap of paper with a note written by one of the characters. If it sounds like a lot of work went into this, it has; a team of artisans, shoppers and dozens of interns spent almost six months working non-stop on the physical production.
The New York Times has a wonderful article on Sleep No More. You really have to click through to the interactive feature where you can view a photo slideshow with audio commentary on a few of the hundred rooms in this piece. The pictures give you a better sense of the “look” of the place than I can describe. The “gestalt” of the piece, however, is something which not even pictures can describe. The whole experience is so intense, and the conventions it creates and exploits serve to create a uniquely theatrical event; “theatrical” in the sense that it can only be done as live theatre, with any attempt to transform it into film, text or interactive digital inevitably falling far, far short. You can read another write-up at the Wall Street Journal. Unfortunately, the New York Times article is the only source of photographs for this production, as the Punchdrunk group plays their marketing close to the vest to keep an air of mystery and discovery to the whole affair.
Apulian bell-krater by the Schiller Painter. ca. 370 BCE. Würzburg, Martin von Wagner Museum H 5697
This vase shows Telephus threatening Orestes. Though several Ancient Greek plays dramatize this scene, modern scholars believe this vase depicts Aristophanes’ parody of Euripides’ version. More importantly, this vase is one of the rare examples of an illustration of an actual theatrical performance. Â We see the “baby” which is held is actually a wine skin with Persian booties tied on the bottom. It is filled with wine so it could “bleed” as it is cut open.
Note this is not a “special effect”, at least in this context. In the play, Mnesilochus believes he is about to kill a baby, but as he unwraps its clothing, he realizes it is actually a wine skin. As the play is a parody, this may actually be describing a well-known prop trick. Our modern comedies have many examples of when a character realizes he or she is actually in a movie (or play) and the objects being used are merely “props”, ie cheap or poorly-made imitations.
In addition to the scenery in the background the stage was of course decorated with such objects and properties as were required by the particular play. Aeschylus is said to have been the first to adorn the stage in this manner (Vit. Aesch. p. 6 Dindf.). If the scene was a palace or a temple, statues of the gods were generally placed in front of it, and are frequently referred to in the course of the drama. For instance there was the statue of Athene in front of her temple in the Eumenides, and the statues of the tutelary deities before the palace of the Atreidae in the Electra of Sophocles. In the Hippolytus there were two statues in front of the palace of Theseus, one of Artemis the huntress, and the other of Cypris the goddess of love. When Hippolytus returns from the hunt, he offers a garland of flowers to the statue of Artemis, but refuses to pay the slightest homage to the statue of Cypris, in spite of the remonstrances of his attendant. Again, in the country region depicted in the Oedipus Coloneus the statue of the hero Colonus stood in a conspicuous position (Aesch. Eum. 242; Soph. Electr. 1373, O.C. 59; Eur. Hipp. 70–106.). Other examples of the practice of decorating the stage with statues are frequently to be met with both in tragedy and in comedy.
The book next speaks of altars, obelisks, tombs and benches. Again, these items may fall under other departments, such as scenery. The point is not to quibble over the “prop-iness” of these objects, but rather to provide a catalog of the various objects which may have been found in an Ancient Greek production.
Altars again were very common objects upon the Greek stage. In the Supplices of Aeschylus the fugitive maidens take refuge round an altar. The Oedipus Tyrannus opens with the spectacle of a group of Thebans kneeling in supplication before the altar of Apollo (Aesch. Suppl. 188–200; Soph. O.R. 1–3, 142.). Another very ordinary feature in the stage-decoration was the stone obelisk in honour of Apollo of the Highways. It was an ordinary practice among the Greeks to place such obelisks in front of their houses. Their presence upon the stage is frequently referred to both in tragedy and in comedy (Poll.iv. 123; Aesch. Agam. 1080 ff.; Schol. Eur. Phoen. 631; Arist. Vesp. 875.). Various other objects were occasionally required by particular plays. There was the tomb of Darius in front of the palace of Xerxes in the Persae, and the tomb of Agamemnon in front of the palace of the Atreidae in the Choephori. In the Oedipus Coloneus a rocky ledge was required for Oedipus to rest himself upon. In the Acharnians and the Knights a few benches must have been erected upon the stage to serve as a rude imitation of the Pnyx. Walls, watch-towers, and beacon-towers are mentioned by Pollux; and the presence of other similar decorations and erections can be inferred from the extant tragedies and comedies (Aesch. Pers. 684. Choeph. 4; Soph. O.C. 19; Poll. iv. 127.).
Finally, this text discusses chariots and animals. I’ve given my opinion about whether an animal is a prop or not; a chariot, on the other hand, most certainly is.
There was one piece of realism which the Greeks were not averse to, and that was the presence of horses and chariots upon the stage. There are many instances in tragedy of per sons from a distance arriving in a chariot drawn by horses or mules. The vast size of the Greek theatre, and the length and narrowness of the stage, made it peculiarly suitable for displays of this character. In the Agamemnon of Aeschylus Agamemnon and Cassandra approach the palace in a chariot; Agamemnon remains seated there for a considerable time, while he converses with Clytaemnestra; he then dismounts and enters the palace, leaving Cassandra still in the chariot. In the Prometheus the chorus of the Oceanidae enter the stage in a car. In the Electra of Euripides, when Clytaemnestra comes to visit her daughter at the country cottage, she arrives in a chariot, accompanied by Trojan maidens, who assist her to dismount. Several other instances might be mentioned. Animals for riding were also introduced upon the stage. In the Prometheus there is the winged steed upon which Prometheus makes his entrance; and finally in the Frogs of Aristophanes Xanthias rides in upon a donkey (Aesch. Agam. 782–1054, Prom. 135, 279, 284; Eur. Elecr. 998, 999; Arist. Ran. 27.).
Making and finding props for theatre, film, and hobbies
