How-to

Building a Bar for “Anna Christie”

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The first scene of Anna Christie takes place in a small waterfront bar in the New York City harbor around 1910. For our production at Triad Stage, the design had a large back bar and front bar which could appear for that scene and strike backstage when it ended. The scenic designer drafted the front bar and the back bar for the props shop to build, and away we went. Standing nine and a half feet tall, at almost twelve feet long, the back bar really pushed the limits of the definition of a “prop”.

The back bar was built mostly out of lauan with half-inch plywood framing pieces to make it as light as possible, since it would need to be pushed on and off stage a vista by three crew members.

Beginning construction
Beginning construction

It was constructed in three sections to make transportation to the theatre possible. You can see two of the sections below, showing where the piece broke apart. You can also see the beginnings of the wood grain paint treatment which I wrote about last week.

Two sections
Two sections

Most of the vertical surfaces on the top section of this piece were meant to be antique frosted mirrors. I used some silver Mylar as the mirror, laid a section of lace on top, and spray painted through it. This left a lace-like design on the Mylar, and after a few more coats of spray frosting over the whole thing, it looked just like a mirror.

Making the mirror
Making the mirror

The unit was originally on wheels, but when it got to the theatre, the noise it made while moving was deafening. The stage floor consisted entirely of expanded steel panels. We discovered that plastic furniture gliders actually made moving the unit completely silent and fairly effortless. They also ensured the unit remained stationary when no one was touching it.

Back bar
Back bar

With some practical sconces, some lace runners and doilies, and a whole bunch of vintage liquor bottles, the piece was complete. Below is a photo of the whole setup, which includes the front bar that our prop shop also constructed.

Full bar
Full bar

You can also see a side-by-side comparison of the final piece with a research image. Obviously the proportions and specifics were changed in the design, but the inspiration is fairly clear.

Research vs final piece
Research vs final piece
Reprints

Advice on Wood Graining, 1828

Since I just wrote about wood graining, I thought it would be appropriate to share this passage written by Nathaniel Whittock back in 1828 on the subject:

It is of great consequence in imitating oak that the joiner’s work should be represented naturally as well as the wood. The practitioner in graining who resides in any large town, will have ample opportunities in observing the work of others, and improving from their beauties, and even from their defects. If a new oak door is to be formed, the joiner is solicitous to select wood as finely flowered and free from knots as it can be procured; and if a join is made in a panel he is anxious that the wood should be of the same colour, and if possible that the grain and flower should match, as nothing would look worse in his eye than knotty wood and difference of colour.

And yet it is the constant practice of the painter, in order to shew his skill in graining, to make both those faults show as glaringly as possible. Nothing can be more offensive to the eye of taste than to see the panels of a door joined at all; but if the painter chooses to shew his skill, let the joint appear neatly put together, and shew the joint by combing the grain in opposite directions. The common error is to form the joint by glazing part of the panel with a glaze of vandyke brown, leaving the other part the natural color of newly cut oak. This certainly shews a joint, but shews it much in the same way that a tailor would shew his skill in patching a hole in a black coat with a piece of scarlet cloth.

Oak panel door
Oak panel door

Editor’s note: The word “shew” used here is simply an older spelling variation for the word “show”. Originally published in The Decorative Painters’ and Glaziers’ Guide, by Nathaniel Whittock. London: Isaac Taylor Hinton, 1828, pp 24-25.

How-to

Graining Some Wood

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Our production of Anna Christie closed last night at Triad Stage. The first act takes place in a bar, filled with wooden furniture. The bar, tables and chairs all needed to match, and since they were constructed from a variety of wood and other materials, the best way to do that was by painting all of them.

Our scenic charge artist, Jessica Holcombe, helped us develop a process to match the wood sample that our designer picked out. The base coat was a wet blend of two colors: a light tan, and a slightly darker beige. We blended them in the direction that the fake grain would go.

Base coat
Base coat

The next layer was a maroon/pink graining layer. A lot of the graining was done simply with a chip brush lightly dragged along the surface to make stripes. For some of the larger surfaces, we broke out the grain rocker to make some knots and other grain characteristics.

Graining
Graining

For the third layer, we made a glaze from some amber shellac and a bit of brown tint, and painted that over the whole thing.

Glaze coat
Glaze coat

The picture below shows the progression of this graining process, starting with an unpainted chair I bought.

Step-by-step wood graining process
Step-by-step wood graining process

When the furniture got on stage under the lights, it was too bright and the grain had too much contrast. We added another glaze coat of tinted shellac, this time using a darker brown to tint it. Jessica also showed us how to flock (edit: I mean “flog”) this layer, giving it a bit of the subtle pores and perpendicular stripes you can see below.

Final glaze
Final glaze

When doing a wood grain, the more layers you can add, the richer and more realistic your final result will be. There are many other techniques and tricks you can utilize depending on the specific type of wood you are trying to replicate; it is important to have a clear reference photo or physical sample of what you want your wood to look like.

 

 

Useful Sites

Friday Fun-o-Rama Links

Dug North has started a series on working with brass, and in the first installment, he shows several ways to cut brass. Whether it’s brass rod, tube or sheets, he knows the tools to use.

This is pretty great: the “Women in Leadership” column at the Guardian has highlighted Hayley Gibbs, a prop maker in the UK. It’s heartening to see a news outlet acknowledge that people who work with their hands and make things can be leaders too.

Here’s a quick little tip for making windows look broken without removing or destroying the glass.

This is quite the extensive interview with Puppet Kitchen’s Michael Schupbach.

How-to

Making Fake Beer

Our first show of the calendar year at Triad was Anna Christie. One challenge that arose was the need for a realistic lager beer. The first scene takes place in a bar, and the bartender pours several beers from a keg onstage. We couldn’t use real beer, because the amount the actress had to actually consume would have laid her on the floor before the scene was through. So I needed a self-contained and consistent means to produce several glasses of a fake frothy beverage on a bar which entered at the beginning of the scene and was struck a vista at the end. I shot a little video showing how I did it:

Making and finding props for theatre, film, and hobbies