Category Archives: News

Props in the news

News

Death of a Mask Maker

Last Saturday, we found out that Donato Sartori passed away. His father, Amleto Sartori, was responsible for reintroducing the art of leather mask making for Commedia dell’arte after World War II. Commedia was outlawed by Napoleon in 1797, and its craft traditions were lost until Amleto reverse-engineered them and shared them with the world. Donato continued his work; most of what we know about the use of masks in Commedia come from these two.

Here we have a video from 1955 showing Amleto at work. It is unfortunately in Italian and only a minute long, but it gives a good overview of his process for creating a mask out of leather.

Here we have a much longer video showing Donato and his workshop from just a few years ago. Again, it is in Italian, but you get to see many steps of the mask-making process, as well as a glimpse inside the studio that both Donato and Amleto worked from.

I got to visit that studio in 2012 when my wife was taking their mask-making workshop. It is difficult to convey just how influential the Sartoris were in the world of modern theatrical masks. We do not have much of a mask tradition here in the US, but it is very popular in Europe and Asia. My wife once bought a Balinese mask, and she told the mask-maker that it reminded her of Commedia masks. It turns out he had met Donato a few times and they shared techniques with each other.

RIP Donato Sartori (1939-2016)

News

2015 in Review

Since 2015 is almost at an end and 2016 is just around the corner, I thought I would look back at some of the more important news stories in the world of props.

Industrial Light and Magic, the effects company which pioneered modern practical and digital effects, turned 40 this year, and this feature in Wired on their history is nothing short of spectacular.

The Society of Properties Artisan Managers (S*P*A*M) held their yearly conference at the University of Maryland and it was spectacular. The New York City Props Summit also held its annual conference this year, and it had one of its highest attendances ever.

Speaking of S*P*A*M, they also launched a new Facebook Group open to one and all. This replaces any of the previous message boards that were attempted, and hopefully will serve as a bridge between established professionals and newcomers. S*P*A*M also handed out its first grants this year, to Jeffery Bazemore and Lucy Briggs.

The Broadway Bullet Podcast returned this year, thanks to props master Jay Duckworth, who is also the first interview. He props Shakespeare in the Park, and was the prop master on the Off-Broadway incarnation of a little show called Hamilton.

20th Century Props reopened this year after closing down in 2009. It was one of LA’s largest prop rental houses, and its return shows how Hollywood is coming back after so many productions fled town for greener pastures elsewhere.

Wild West reenactors were in the news when one of their actors accidentally used real bullets during a show at Tombstone’s Helldorado Days. That’s gonna leave a mark.

Mythbusters filmed their last episode this year after 14 years on the air. Adam Savage shared images from the final day. The episodes air in the coming months, but production is now wrapped on this groundbreaking show.

After dropping them earlier in the year, the New York Times has restored designer credits to its reviews after overwhelming outcry from our industry.

USITT has begun a monthly spotlight of its members, and the December Member Spotlight was a props master named me.

See you next year! The End.

News

In Memoriam, 2015

As the year draws to a close, I wanted to remember some of the people who have passed away in 2015. These are either people who work in our industry or do work closely related to our own. If I have missed anyone, let me know.

Eddie Aiona, props master for Clint Eastwood, died at 83. Aiona first worked with Eastwood on Magnum Force (1973), and propped all his films until retiring after The Bridges of Madison County in 1995. He also propped films for directors like Martin Scorsese, Sydney Pollack, John Carpenter and Robert Redford.

Blaine Gibson, sculptor of figures in Disney Parks, died at 97. Gibson sculpted hundreds of the figures used for Disney’s Audio-Animatronics, including the first one, Abraham Lincoln. His work also included characters in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, the Haunted Mansion, and It’s a Small World.

George Barris, Batmobile Creator, died at 89. Barris worked on some of the most iconic cars in Hollywood, including the aforementioned Batmobile from the 1960s Batman with Adam West . He also built the Munster’s Koach and worked on cars for Knight Rider, Mannix and North by Northwest.

Mark Gill, Macy’s Parade Studio, 32. Mark was a props carpenter at Julliard before leaving to work on the floats for the Macy’s Parade. His wife was in props as well, working as the props master at NYU while I was at the Public Theater (and just a few blocks over). Both of them attended the inaugural NYC Props Summit in 2009. His death was far too soon, and he will be missed greatly.

The attendees of the 2009 New York City Props Summit
The attendees of the 2009 New York City Props Summit
News

Shooting at the OK Corral

This past weekend saw another accident with guns used during a performance, this time at a Wild West reenactment during Tombstone’s Helldorado Days.

According to Tucson News Now, “One of the Vigilantes arrived late and did not have his gun properly inspected. He then accidentally shot another member of the Vigilantes.” The show was stopped immediately, and it turns out the shooter’s gun had been loaded with six live rounds, and five of them were fired.

Yikes.

We could talk about all the things that “should have” happened. They should do a gun check before every show. They should have an armorer in charge of all the ammunition. They should cheat their aim away from other actors. They should, they should, they should.

But it sounds like they do that. The Tombstone Vigilantes have been performing reenactments since 1946. They do several shows a month. Collectively, they have probably fired off more blank ammunition than most of us have even seen. And they have done it without an accident for 69 years.

So what happened? I don’t know. We may never know. But the important thing to take away from all this is that weapons safety protocols are important no matter how experienced you are, or how many times you have done a show. No matter how much training you have, or how qualified you become, you can never skip over proper safety procedures.

Learning about proper weapon safety isn’t like a vaccine, where once you learn it, you are protected from future accidents. It only works if you follow it each and every time weapons are used on stage. There is no new procedure or protocol we can invent that will imbue us with perfect safety; we already know all the proper procedures, we just need to follow them.

I recently ran across the following passage from an 1874 issue of Harper’s Monthly Magazine. We’ve had safe weapons procedures for a long, long time; it goes to show that accidents only happen when they are neglected:

“A careful property-man keeps his ramrod attached by a cord to the wall, so that he may not by mistake leave it in a gun-barrel after loading the weapon. Accidents have arisen from a neglect of this precaution, and also from the improper or careless loading of weapons, as was the case a short time since in Washington, where a young man was shot and killed on the stage of a variety theatre by a too-heavy wadding, which entered his head from the gun of a horrified comrade. Paper wads are very dangerous; among the other accidents possible through them is that of their setting fire to the scenery; hence in well-regulated theatres a special wadding is used, made of hair, and which will not communicate fire to surrounding objects.”

News

2015 SPAM Conference

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This past weekend I attended the 22nd annual S*P*A*M Conference at the University of Maryland, just outside of Washington, DC. S*P*A*M is the Society of Properties Artisan Managers, and its members include the heads of the props departments at most regional theatres, universities and operas throughout the US (and one in Canada).

S*P*A*M business meeting
S*P*A*M business meeting

This year’s conference was attended by 43 prop masters, making it among the largest conferences. The members have a combined 879 years of experience. The mornings of the conference were spent in business meetings, where we shared what we learned in the past year and planned for the future of the organization.

Touring the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center
Touring the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center

We spent a portion of the day Friday touring the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, where the conference was being held. Timothy J. James, the props shop manager, gave us a tour of the props shop, and we got to see various other shops and performing spaces throughout the massive center. On Saturday, we also received a tour of their props storage, which is held offsite.

Puppets and headdresses by Marie Schneggenburger
Puppets and headdresses by Marie Schneggenburger

On Saturday, we had two presentations. The first was by Marie Schneggenburger, the props master at Ford’s Theatre and puppet maker extraordinaire. Her work is amazing, her stories were incredible, and she had a lot of techniques that most of us were excited to try out. She also had the enviable side gig of making cozies for satellites at NASA.

Thinking outside the box with a CNC router
Thinking outside the box with a CNC router

The scene shop gave a presentation on the experiments they are conducting with their CNC router. Besides the typical cutting and carving that most shops do, they are working with a lot of 3D applications. The picture above shows one experiment where they scanned in the scene designer’s model and used the CNC to build a full-scale structure that they could then cover and coat.

22nd Annual S*P*A*M Conference
22nd Annual S*P*A*M Conference

All in all, it was a very successful and productive conference. I want to thank Timothy and his staff for pulling it off. It’s not an easy task herding 43 props masters without losing any. Here’s to next year!