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White-tailed Stag

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The majority of my time this past autumn was spent working on puppets for Triad Stage’s production of “Snow Queen”. The play is an original retelling of the Hans Christian Anderson tale, set in the Appalachian Mountains with bluegrass music.

The animals (other than the two birds) were designed to look like they were constructed from cut and folded paper. Bill Brewer, the puppet designer, came up with the range of motions he wanted the puppets to have. Each puppet only had one puppeteer to operate it, which is tricky when the puppets are this large and manipulated by actors rather than trained puppeteers. We worked together to distill their movements down to the simplest motions so their moments on stage would be evocative and magical.

Puppets from Snow Queen
Puppets from Snow Queen

The stag had the most logistical challenges, so I began work on him first. The main challenge was that the lead actress rides him around on stage, so it needed to support her weight and remain comfortable for the operator to carry her while still working the puppet. I used a marching band snare drum harness to attach the puppet to the operator. We used these out at the Santa Fe Opera this past summer for a similar purpose, so I already knew it was the best option for comfortably distributing the weight over the operator’s body while keeping a strong and stiff connection to the puppet. 

You can watch the evolution of the skeleton and mechanisms in the video below:

It took me about a month and a half to get the movement right (I was working on the other puppets at this time as well, and we produced a whole other show within that time frame as well). My goal was to have this skeleton ready for the first week of rehearsal so the actors could begin working with it and discovering what it could do.

Skeleton and mechanisms
Skeleton and mechanisms

When the puppets were not being used in rehearsal, I took them back to start adding the three-dimensional bodies. It was vital that the actors used the puppets in rehearsal; the evolution of the puppet scenes was shaped dramatically by the discoveries of how the puppets moved and reacted.

Adding the foam
Adding the foam

For the solid parts, I attached chunks of EPS foam and carved them into shape.

To get the “folded paper” appearance, I laid some pieces of Wonderflex over top of the foam. Wonderflex is a plastic sheet which becomes formable at a very low temperature; you can let it drape or fold it like fabric, and when it cools, it retains that shape.

Fabric and Wonderflex
Fabric and Wonderflex

For the neck, I needed a much more flexible material, and after some experimentation, found a type of fabric which matched the appearance of the rest of the stag, but would allow the puppet to retain its full range of motion.

Head and antlers
Head and antlers

The head itself was carved by Brewer. We played around with a few designs for antlers, and ended up making them out of several interlocking segments. The ears were cut and shaped from more Wonderflex.

Painting and filling
Painting and filling

By that point, we were already loading into the theater, so the long task of filling, sanding and priming was done there. After  base-coating the puppets to a uniform white color, they were shaded with grey and silver paint to accentuate the flat plains and folds. Most of this was done by Howard Jones, the scenic designer on the show.

White-tailed stag
White-tailed stag

 

Useful Sites

First Links of 2014

Welcome back, everyone! I hope you all had an enjoyable holiday and are ready for the new year. You may have noticed this site has a brand new look. I am still working out all the bugs and kinks, but all of the articles and information are still there. So feel free to check it all out, and check out the following links as well:

If you are a fan of the show Parks and Recreation, you may enjoy this oral history of the “Cones of Dunshire” board game which appeared a few episodes ago. The prop department worked with the game makers of “Settlers of Catan” to come up with this delightfully-complex (but unfortunately fictional) game.

Do you like the movie Alien? Here is a collection of behind-the-scenes footage from Alien compiled from dozens of bits of home movies. This isn’t the slick and sterile footage intended for a DVD featurette; this is just raw footage shot for personal use and which hasn’t really been seen until today.

Stephen Magazine recently did an article on the Theatre Calgary props warehouse.  They talked with props master Lillian Messer who showed off their well-stocked inventory and explained where they find their pieces.

Iñaki Aliste Lizarralde makes delightful hand-drawn floor plans of apartments from television shows and films. See the furniture arrangement in Monica’s apartment from Friends, or how the rooms are connected in Frasier’s grand apartment. Even the smallest TV apartment is far more spacious than any I have ever lived in.

Useful Sites

Friday Links

The New York Times Arts Beat blog has a great interview with Amelia Freeman-Lynde on the food for the Apply Family play cycle. These four plays by Richard Nelson have premiered once a year for the past four years, and this year, they are being presented in repertory at the Public Theater. Each play calls for a lot of food; entire meals are consumed by the cast through the course of the show. So coming up with cost-effective and healthy meals for the shows have been quite a challenge for Amelia, who has been the prop master on these shows since they have begun, even after moving out of New York City.

Here is a day in the life of Laura Johnson. Johnson is a freelance prop maker in the UK, but she also makes tiny figurines, which is what this article is about. They are quite fun.

Lost Art Press has another great blog post this week on the recommended tool list for a union carpenter in 1970. The list not only gives specific brand suggestions for each tool, but it tells you how often you should buy a new tool, and in what order they should be purchased.

This looks like it could be a fun project: make a hot-wire foam cutter from a model train transformer.

This seems to be the time of year when everyone is writing about suggested gifts. Here’s my suggested gift: buy my book. Boom, Christmas shopping done.

Showcases

Munescos Animados video

Here’s a fun look at the work of Muñecos Animados, a puppet workshop that builds puppets for film and TV. The description is all in Spanish, but the video itself has no text or speech (well, the puppets talk, but it’s not integral to the video), so you can enjoy it regardless of what language you speak.

Making and finding props for theatre, film, and hobbies