On the final stop of our tour of Chicago theaters is the largest of all, the Goodman Theatre. The Goodman is the city’s oldest nonprofit theater, and Alice Maguire has been properties supervisor there for nearly thirty years.
We first received a tour of their two theater spaces, both of which currently had shows on stage. Continue reading Goodman Theatre
Last week I attended the 25th conference for the Society of Properties Artisan Managers. It was hosted by a number of Chicago theaters this year, so I got to tour some of their spaces. First up is the facilities at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater, located on the Navy Pier.
Alabama man crafts props for ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ -Â Kenneth Spivey builds props for the Marvel movies in a warehouse in Alabama, just a few hours from Pinewood Atlanta Studios. His work includes repairs to the Infinity Gauntlet as well as Captain America’s Wakandan shields. So jealous.
Humble Book Bundle: Cosplay 2.0 – One of the latest Humble Bundles has a whole slew of cosplay-making books up for grabs. Here is how it works: you donate a certain amount and get a whole bunch of e-books for free. Donate larger amounts to get even more books. You only have until the end of May for this Bundle.
Celebrate Star Wars Day with These 12 Projects – Okay, this is kind of misleading since eight of these are yarncraft projects, but there are still a few prop projects here to keep you busy.
Best Chicago Prop House: Zap Props – SEE Chicago takes a video tour of Zap Props, one of the largest prop rental houses in the Midwest.
The following is one of several interviews conducted by students of Ron DeMarco’s properties class at Emerson College.
By Emily White
Alice Maguire is currently the Properties Supervisor at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, but she hasn’t always been. In 1972 she enrolled in SUNY Oswego as a psychology major and ended up taking a Children’s Theatre class where everyone had to participate in the show somehow. Alice ended up with the glamorous job of running the hand-pump, wintergreen scented, oil based fog machine while squatting behind Scrooge’s bedroom door for Marley’s entrance in A Christmas Carol. When talking about the experience she said “theatre is a bug that bites you and I was bittenâ€. Continue reading Interview with Alice Maguire
You may have noticed a distinct lack of posts this week. Between tech, a minor flood at the theatre, and personal challenges, I did not have any time to write this week. But have no fear, the Internet is here, with stories about props of all shapes and sizes:
First off, the Chicago theatre community has an annual props, sets and costume give-away amongst all the professional theatre companies. The Sun-Times Media has a nice write-up, including video and photographs of some of the theatre’s storage spaces. It is also a great exploration on how local theatre communities share resources with each other.
Dave Lowe, the props master at Hallmark Channel’s “Home and Family”, makes custom trophies for the winner of a game segment on the show. When Florence Henderson guest-starred, he set out to create a replica of the cursed tiki from when the Brady Bunch went to Hawaii.
When Playmaker Rep’s production of Assassins needed a dead dog on stage, the costume crafts shop stepped in to make one. La Bricoleuse shows us how they did it.
Finally, Bob Knetzger fits a spray booth underneath his stairs for his home workshop. He has drawings and photos explaining how he built it.
