Comments on: “Don’t Touch That!” The Trials & Tribulations Of A Props Designer

By: Erika

Erika — Mon, 11 Feb 2019 03:50:51 +0000

My community theatre recently did Blythe Spirit and one scene calls for the main characters to be eating breakfast. I was stage managing, but my props/Asst. Stage Mgr. couldn’t be there until Tech Week, so I was also pulling props. What to do for breakfast food? The costume designer suggested Egg McMuffins. Pull them apart and you’ve got eggs, canadian bacon and English Muffins. Plus, the female lead had finished her breakfast before the scene starts, so we tore one slice of the muffinin half and had the male lead with the rest of the bacon and eggs. Food came out of the fridge just before the scene started and went right back in after being cleared. Used a total of four McMuffins over the course of tech week and 2 weekends (5 performances).

By: Debbie Summerhalder

Debbie Summerhalder — Mon, 11 Feb 2019 03:17:08 +0000

Bye Bye Birdie – song Telephone Hour. Actress trips, falls down, phone handset falls and breaks. “Are you all right?” (sobbing) “I broke the phone!!!!!” “That’s okay. Are you all right?” “I BROKE THE PHONE!!!!” An actress who cared about her props as much as I did.

By: Katherine LeDuc

Katherine LeDuc — Thu, 05 Oct 2017 01:32:14 +0000

In reply to Tracy Birttnen. Tracy, We had the same thing happen with the Odd Couple except someone disposed of ALL our prop trash! We had to order pizzas, shop for more beer and I got sent out to find a Witman Sampler that was specifically mentioned in the script.

By: Tracy Birttnen

Tracy Birttnen — Wed, 04 Oct 2017 22:33:40 +0000

I was doing props and set dressing for “The Odd Couple” for a community theatre. The play opens in Oscar’s apartment before Felix moves in, so of course it needed to be trashed and the ashtrays had to be full. I had been collecting everyone’s cigarette and cigar butts and ashes for weeks. Opening night, I found that someone had thrown out my collection! I ran out and bought a pack of cigarettes and lit them all, placed them around an ashtray and tried to keep them all lit until I had more butts and ashes. This was before smoking bans in public buildings. I don’t smoke, but I kept everyone of those cigarettes going. The entire cast and crew heard my grumbling for days.

By: Dave Downer

Dave Downer — Tue, 15 Aug 2017 17:36:07 +0000

Thanks for such an accurate description! I have done quite a bit of prop designing for shows I’ve been in….see I am an actor that has a flair for crafting and design. I work in an architectural design firm as my full-time job but perform in community theater (and some paid). Typically, I make friends with all the costume, prop and design people and offer my help whenever needed. Sometimes, like when I was in Oklahoma! there will be a prop that my character (Jud Fry) uses that I will ask about. Well, for that particular show the props designer had absolutely no idea how they were going to get/make a “Little Wonder”. So……I drew up a sketch and then actually fabricated a working model using cardboard, a wood paint stick cut to the shape of a blade, some rubber bands and some of those paper fasteners that go through a hole and then split so the legs bend back against the paper to hold it all together. The practice prop turned out great and they asked me to build two props for the actual show – and it is a good thing I did because the first one somehow “accidentally” got broken by someone who should not have even been touching the thing! So that “don’t touch it if it is not yours” is particularly important to me! I’ve also built my own EVA foam sword for my Miles Gloriosus character from Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. It allowed me to actually poke one of the other characters without hurting him at all – yet the sword looked real! Additionally, I had a great time designing and fabricating the Sir Bors character for our production of Spamalot! We used a flat band hat that a vertically challenged actress would wear. We fastened shoulder pads around it so when she put the hat on her head, it looked like she was just headless. It was a very cool effect. On top of the hat we mounted a short rod with a spring and clasp system and I fabricated a knight’s helmet out of foam with craft foam details and painted it. It looked awesome. The actress would approach the cave entry, a stage hand would throw the rabbit puppet to her and she would catch it and then hold it up to her “neck”, which was right where the catch release was. She would hit the release and the spring would launch the foam head straight up and some red cloth strips would fall out and make it look like she had just been beheaded. It was a wonderfully comical effect and the actress played it perfectly. The audience would roar every night and the reactions from the other cast members was also great as they carefully collected her and her head and dragged her offstage. Great stuff! Finally, for our production of Beauty and the Beast last December, I got the wonderful fortune of being cast as the Beast. I was a dream role for me and I got to fabricate my magic mirror. Made it out of EVA foam and used battery powered green lights for the “magic” part. The switch was right in the handle so when I said, “Show me the girl!” I would hit the switch and my face would light up with the green glow from the lights. The lighting designer mimicked the effect with green stage lights on Belle and the Wardrobe in her “room” so the effect played wonderfully. Its so much fun being involved with this stuff! Thanks again for the wonderful article!

By: Beki Pineda

Beki Pineda — Tue, 15 Aug 2017 13:49:37 +0000

OMG – I’ve never seen the work of a Props Designer described so accurately!! Thanks for sharing. I’ve been a props person in Denver for over 30 years and felt like you told my life story. Loved it.

By: KD

KD — Fri, 16 Sep 2016 06:09:08 +0000

In reply to KD.

Okay, so APPARENTLY after showing my husband this post, he said, “Yeah, that was me.” I was like, “Who?” He was like, “Yeah, I was the one who got hit with the bread.” I was like, “YOU were the one hit with bread?! NO… it can’t be… I remember it was–” He cut me off “No that was me. How else would you know about the varying hardness of the bread?” “WHAT. NO WAY? THAT WAS YOU?” “Yeah. And to be fair, that was the best acting you’ve seen out of me yet.”

By: KD

KD — Fri, 16 Sep 2016 04:40:42 +0000

For “No More Peace” the director thought it would be funny for a character to “knock out” another character with an Italian loaf of bread–that they were eating earlier in the scene. So it turns out, getting hit with a soft loaf just kinda folds the bread, and then just kinda slowly breaks off from the tiny piece the actress is hanging on to. I know what you’re thinking. We tried Ciabatta. We tried stale bread. We tried a whole assortment of variations with different breads under different conditions. Which–while hilarious to see an actress swing a loaf as hard as she can onto her counterpart’s head dozens of times, while everyone critiquing that process– “What if you swung HARDER?” “How about if you just hit him in the face and knock him back?” etc, etc. Long story short, lots of laughs–I nearly peed right there–but bread is not the ideal prop to knock someone out with. So then, EVERYONE continued to offer pointless solutions and the poor props designer was forced into a corner with group consensus of a terrible idea–to put a wooden rod in the middle of the bread to help keep it stiff. Well, next rehearsal, the wooden rod bread was swung with the same ferocity as the original loaves– in which the bread totally fell off the wooden rod leaving the actress with just a wooden rod in hand–and the actor into which she so furiously swung fell to the ground in pain. (And that was the best “acting” we’ve seen out of him yet.) So after a hospital trip, the director STILL thought it would be a good idea to go forward with the bread idea. So the props designer decided to lacquer the bread –which was a nice happy medium to the wooden rod bread, and when swung with an average ferocity, only left mild abrasions to the receiver’s head. AND it would only break apart one in five swings (Yes, there were dozens more tests with lacquered bread onto a person’s head. Yes. Not a wall. Not a table. But dammit, you need that person’s head to see how the bread will hold up.) So ANYWAY. That’s my story with ONE prop in ONE show. Poor props designer!

Oh yeah, and by the way, because the bread still needed to be eaten–a fresh, edible loaf, was brought every night for the first part of the scene–but usually got destroyed by the actors– that is, it was usually brought to the green room to be dipped in the fondue.

LOVE YOU PROPERTIES DESIGNER(S) We’re SORRY!