Tag Archives: American Theatre Wing

Props in the News Today

The Society of Properties Artisan Managers Offers Some Advice – Here are 32 pieces of advice from veteran prop masters to burgeoning prop artisans.

For a Hollywood propmaster, it’s the little things that make ‘Big Little Lies’ a success – Jane Gulick’s job is to make sure the Monterey area in Big Little Lies looks like the real town. She uses a ton of local products to help flesh out the world.

An American Theatre Wing Working in Theatre Video: Specialty Props – Mary Creede, Zoë Morsette, and John Jerard create some of the most unusual and iconic props on Broadway. Check out this video to see the shops where they are tasked with creating all the things that don’t currently exist.

Broadway Design On Display At McNay Museum – If you are in San Antonio, TX, before June 30th, check out this exhibition of theatrical and film designs. The show features models and renderings from some of the 20th and 21st centurys’ most prolific designers.

In the Wings – Props

American Theatre Wing, the organization best known as the founder of the Tony Awards, has an ongoing feature called “In the Wings“. It’s a series of short videos which highlight people in different backstage roles. The latest video highlights a prop master.

Desiree Maurer
Desiree Maurer

Desiree Maurer is the prop master at Playwrights Horizon here in New York City. Incidentally, she had my position as Assistant Props Master at the Public Theater before that.

The video series are a great look on all the different aspects of what goes into making a theatre run. I also suggest checking out the one on Ruth Sternberg, production manager. Ruth is our production manager at the Public, and the video shows a lot of clips from shows I’ve worked on there. You can also catch a brief cameo of me in this video when she is checking out the bird puppets for Winter’s Tale.

Ruth Sternberg
Ruth Sternberg

Martha Donaldson is a frequent stage manager here as well, and in the “In the Wings” episode on stage management, we see her working on our production of The Bacchae from 2009.

Martha Donaldson
Martha Donaldson

Finally, I’d like to point you to the episode on puppetry design with Emily DeCola. Not only is she part of the fantastic Puppet Kitchen and great fun to work with, but she’s one of the puppeteers on our upcoming production of Compulsion, which starts tech today.

Emily DeCola
Emily DeCola