Prop-erly

As I've mentioned before, I "do" community theater because I get to be creative.  Some of my handiwork from two of the latest shows:

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This is "mom's work space."  No kids or husband allowed.

 The big trunk o'props. More rehearsals=more stuff.

When your space is limited backstage,

a "props shelf" is better than a "props table."

A jug.  A jug of whatever you want it to be.  For "Frankenstein," it was first water, then wine.  I assembled it for "The Women" seven years ago; the handle was severely broken and it had no cork, but the price at the antiques booth was right.  A good condition jug was about $60. This one was about $15, not including $3 in supplies from Dollar Tree (supplies of which left me with extras.)  Not bad for a jug of "hooch."

This is a "crash box," believe it or not. In the second scene of "Frankenstein," the servant Fritz brings in a tray of tea before he is physically upbraided by his master Victor.  I hadn't been paying attention to the pantomime accompanying the dialog/blocking, so when given a tray, "Fritz" startled me by dropping it.  Made character sense, but I wasn't expecting it.  SO, those two china cups & saucers? Nix. And forget a teapot with liquid. Back to the drawing board. Came up with some plastic "coffee cups" from Party City that I sprayed a flat silver, a large metal potpourri holder that I also sprayed to resemble a sugar bowl, a smaller metal tray to set the bowl on, three teaspoons, and one "napkin" for "cleaning up."  Yep, it made a racket. We only lost two small chips out of one cup.  That's some sturdy party ware!

I'm proud of this. We needed candles that looked real, wouldn't break and wouldn't catch anything on fire. Being a pack-rat paid off. I have saved the heavy "cardboard" center rolls from my Costco plastic & foil wraps. They're too heavy for cardboard, but I don't think they're true pressboard tubes, either, even though I required a small saw to cut them down to size. I cut two short "candles" from one tube, making sure each had a machine-cut end for a base and my own crooked cut for a "melted" top. A battery-powered tea light fit inside each tube. I used a glue gun to create wax drips on the outside and an interior rim for the candle to rest upon. Then I painted the whole thing white to match the tea-light. To help the "candles" to stay put on their holders, I added a dixie-cup inside for packing material. Turned out well, and at about 50¢ each, we could afford to break a tea-light. Not that you can break an LED, but why tempt Fate?

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The props table space says what it is, but not how & why. This is from "It's a Wonderful Life." Brenda had already acquired all of the props she could find available from the Theatre Huntsville building. A few still had to be acquired or made, like this one for the maid Annie who gladly pitched in to help the Baileys in their time of need, "I was saving this for my divorce, if I ever got married." Since Marcie, who was playing the character, was about seven months pregnant, and feeling it, I didn't want her to carry a real & heavy jar of coins (which begs to be stolen, broken or filched for the coke machine.) I always have an empty Classico jar around, and toy coins aren't very expensive. To add some realism, I got some gold-foil chocolate coins which would be about the size of the gold coins of the day. Boy, did all the kids beg to have just one candy!

This is the "it's a miracle" basket of money. Brenda had found a peach basket and some bubble wrap to fill the bottom, while her husband, who coincidentally played Uncle Billy who loses the money, used their printer to "make" money for this basket and other scenes that needed folding money. To give it realism, I found some green felt and glue-gunned it over the bubble wrap and around the edges. I then bought some pale green paper & cut it to the size of the fake bills, and glued to them to cover the felt. On top of that I glued my allotment of fake bills. With everything thus glued down, they would not fall out of the basket, no matter how it was carried or put down. It would also be easier to remove the individual "donations" put there in the closing scene. I made sure the papers & bills were folded/crumpled to seem randomly thrown in. Brenda said the basket looked good. She would sit out in the audience every night for a few scenes (especially the ones her husband was in,) and she told me that no matter where she sat, THAT looked like a basket full of money.

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Fun stuff, isn't it? And you couldn't pay me to do it.