Category Archives: Reprints

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Life in Properties, 1895

The following is a delightful first-person account (author unknown) of life in the property department. It dates way back to 1895, but many of the challenges of the job remain the same:

Not exactly an artist—not by any means a mechanic—it is hard for me to say exactly what head I come under. I remember there was trouble the last time they took the census, for my wife would not hear of my being described as a “property man,” through being afraid those stupid Government officers might think me a man of property and go charging me house duty and income tax, and all sorts of things. A hollow kind of life, do you call it? Well, that’s a matter of opinion. Not if it’s done conscientiously, I say. That poet I have heard of must have had me in his eye when he wrote “Things are not what they seem.” It is my mission to make the unreal appear to be real, and whatever you may think about the usefulness of that pursuit as a help to happiness in a respectably-conducted state, the property man is generally more successful in his aim than the actor who looks down upon him. I dare say they never give it a moment’s thought, but the British drama would be a poverty-stricken article without the help of the property man.

King Richard having to go on without a scepter would never be able to render Shakespeare true to nature, and what becomes of your classics, like The Courier of Lyons, if the mail guard isn’t shot at the proper moment? Yes, I have known more than one swagger tragedian have his comb cut through offending the property man. Particularly do I mind an Othello on a sofa with one of the legs sawn through by a gentleman in my line of business as revenge for the swagger tragedian’s bad temper for a whole fortnight. When he and the sofa and the curtain came down all together I thought the roof would have been lifted with laughter. The property man had gone home before the last act, or I am sure there would have been a real tragedy that night—and without any of the Shakespearean dialogue either.

A noble occupation surely, and a strain upon the mind certainly. You are always in terror of forgetting something, and forgetfulness has led to many new readings of popular plays. I recollect omitting to furnish a Hamlet with his tablets. He dived into his cloak for them, and they were not there. So he had to make his notes on imaginary ones, and the next day the newspapers raved about the magnificence of the new reading. Yet the credit belonged to the property-man, who never had any thanks for making the man’s reputation. A week of the legitimate is a regular load on the brain, and those historic plays are enough to drive you mad, what with the banners of this army and that, and the spears and the swords, and the rapiers and the banqueting scenes. Did I ever fit up The Old Toil House?

You’ll be asking me if I ever saw Joe Cave next. Ah! there’s a play for you—full of interest and movement, and those last dying orations for Jack Bunnage—as pretty a bit of poetry as you wish to clap eyes on. None of your drawing-room pieces for me—with their letters and lockets and fans and imitation vases and folderols. Good, honest properties are what I like—something that can be seen from the front with the naked eye and setting the audience wondering how much they cost. Jealous of real horses and cabs and saddle-bag furniture for the interiors? Not a bit of it. Live and let live, I say. Many a property feast have I put on in my time. The public expects property feeds in the legitimate. Sit Macbeth down to a table and ask his guests to drink out of anything but empty goblets, or pretend to do anything in the eating department except fool about with red-cheeked apples before Banquo comes in, and the public would hiss the play off the stage. No, sir, they will not stand any desecration of Shakespeare, and I pity the first Lady Macbeth who dares from the royal table to eat soup with a spoon. It would never do. The playgoer does not expect real food in a Shakespearean piece. He would object to it as a desecration and a degradation. He will permit no interference with the functions of the property man. On the other hand, provide Mrs. Puffy with anything save an honest hot steaming meat pie for The Streets of London and the house would be wrecked.

“Harlequin’s Leap.” Los Angeles Herald, 23 Feb. 1895, p. 11.

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Prop Service, 1957

The following comes from a 1957 article about a prop rental company founded to fulfill non-theatrical needs for props:

by Anthony Bailey and Brendan Gill

One of the most agreeable aspects of the boom we’ve been having for the past ten years or so is the freedom it offers young people in choosing their careers. If a young man doesn’t like the first job that presents itself, he abandons it in favor of a second, and if it, too, proves unsatisfactory, he’s apt to go out and invent a job of his own and make good in that. Take the case of a new acquaintance of ours, a pleasant and enterprising fellow named Stanley Levine, who is the deviser and proprietor of something called Prop Service. The name tells precisely what Mr. Levine has set out to do, which is to procure all sorts of props for the remarkably large number of non-Broadway people in this prop-happy city who require such objects—professional photographers, advertising agencies, TV producers, and the like. Levine, an athletic-looking thirty-two-year-old, is full of drive and bounce, as a seeker of props must be; his only assistants are his wife, known to the trade as Rhoda Roth (her maiden name) a man Friday named William Sheraton, and a telephone-answering service; and his headquarters is a room on Sutton Place, shared by Mary Suzuki, a nisei lady who does illustrations for fashion magazines.

When we visited Mr. Levine in Sutton Place the other day, we expected to find the room crammed to the ceiling with odd and perhaps unrecognizable objects. We found, on the contrary, that its contents consisted of a desk, a couple of chairs, two telephones, a small wooden box labelled “Source,” and a drawing board. “We had to make up our minds at the start whether to buy props,” Levine told us. “We decided against it, partly because many photographers don’t like to use a prop that they know other photographers have used, and partly because we’d have needed a warehouse to store stuff in. We’ve often been tempted to break our rule, but so far we’ve always either rented a prop or borrowed it or made it.” What was Levine’s preparation for his singular career? Brooklyn College, the Marines, the Sorbonne, then jobs with the United Nations, the Journal-American, Warner-Pathé, and a public-relations firm. “After a while, it occurred to me I didn’t like working for other people,” he said. “Rhoda and I are incorrigible window-shoppers, and we know a good deal about antiques. We figured we’d put our interest to work for us by charging a fee to locate the objects that we assumed photographers and the like were constantly in need of. We hung out our shingle in December, 1955, and discovered at once, to our astonishment, that what photographers wanted weren’t just antiques but also kitchen sinks.”

We supposed that Mr. Levine had mentioned kitchen sinks as a symbol, but he assured us he hadn’t. “You wouldn’t believe how many pictures of kitchen sinks get taken in this city every year, and how hard it is to find exactly the right sizes, shapes, and colors,” he said. “This is a frantic business. Rhoda and I work as much as twenty hours a day, six and a half days a week. We had no predecessors, we have no real competitors, and I doubt if we’ll have any successors.” He smiled the rueful smile of the pioneer who fears he may have made too good for his own good. “In the beginning, photographers came to us for props. Nowadays, advertising agencies often come to us for props before they’ve chosen a photographer. Sometimes, in fact, we choose the photographer for them. Agencies also like to consult us on what a given picture may cost. Why try and build an ad around a picture of a diesel yacht if it would take their whole budget just to hire the yacht? They don’t know what a yacht costs; we do. One agency wanted a life-size stuffed elephant for a prop. A stuffed elephant sounds cheaper than a live one, doesn’t it? Well, we found what they wanted up in Yonkers, but the price was so high that we persuaded them to go to the Zoo instead.”

Municipal departments and big corporations are extremely obliging about lending props, Mr. Levine said. He has often borrowed blinking lights, manhole guardrails and covers, pneumatic drills, and other equipment from Con Ed, and has borrowed subway seats, street signs, and similar items of local color from the city. “Except for an occasional gratuity, no cash changes hands in such cases, but there’s a prodigious amount of red tape to be got through,” Levine said. “That’s what we get paid for—our headaches. Our fees range from fifteen to a thousand dollars. Some agencies and photographers simply mail us a list of objects they need, and count on us to deliver them at the proper time and place.” Levine took a letter from the desk and read aloud, “‘One gilt pedestal. Feathered angel’s wings. One hookah. One ornate fibre screen. One old conga drum. One sea diver’s outfit. One beehive. One live tiger. One mermaid’s tail.’ We then scoot around town in a fire-engine-red Isetta 300 and look for things.” The props that the Levines are proudest of procuring are a ship’s gang-plank, a baseball grandstand, three racing greyhounds, and an eggshell cracked just so. “To date, our only failure has been a particular kind of Aladdin’s lamp that somebody wanted—a million-to-one shot,” Levine said. “Except for that, we’ve never missed a deadline, and we’ve never turned down an assignment.” A telephone rang, and he picked it up. “Palm trees?” he asked. “Why not? Where?… What time?… How many?”

Bailey, Anthony, and Brendan Gill. “Props.” The New Yorker, 8 June 1957, p. 24.

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Dragons and Geese in Opera, 1915

Edward Siedle, Technical Director of the Metropolitan Opera House, gives the author an account of some of the animals and fantastic creatures used on stage in the opera. I posted another selection from this article last year:

by Mercy Gorham

“To make the dragon in ‘Siegfried’ possible, two men in turn act as the front and hind legs of the creature and control the working of the mouth, eyes and ears. Two more are required to handle the wires which lower and elevate the head, beside the electrician who watches the lights in the eyes, the one who controls the vapor and steam proceeding from the dragon’s nostrils, and lastly the conductor, who has to watch the score carefully, so as to give the cue for the various movements of the dragon. The technical director himself attends to the side movements of the head.

“The bear in ‘Siegfried’ is worked by the property man. In ‘Koenigskinder’ the geese are real, and must be cared for when not on duty in a room of their own. Every day their wants are attended to, their bath kept clean. Though used but six times during the opera season, these aristocratic birds live on the fat of the land. There is one property goose that takes the crown away and later brings it back again, and this is operated by the property man.

“‘Lohengrin’ has its swans, ‘Rheingold’ its small dragon, ‘The Magic Flute’ its enormous elephant with howdah and Oriental draperies. While these are but minor illustrations of the inventive genius necessary to produce grand opera, they give some small idea of the tremendous responsibility resting on the heads of departments beyond the curtain line, the infinite attention to detail necessary, and the enormous labor, both mental and physical, required to give grand opera patrons the series of perfect stage pictures for which they pay and which they have a right to demand.”

Gorham, Mercy. “Grand Opera Beyond the Curtain Line.” The Theatre Magazine Jan. 1915: 41. Google Books. Web. 15 Mar. 2016.

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Whither Go Those Props? 1954

The following comes from a 1954 article and talks about where props retire to after their Broadway career:

By Arthur Gelb

When “Kind Sir” closed last spring, Joshua Logan like other producers before him, tackled a recurrent and vexing problem: What to do with a show’s props after they have been sat on, gazed upon or wielded for the last time.

Over the years, resourceful producers have evolved a carload of methods for converting superannuated trappings into cash, but Mr. Logan, in an entrepreneurial flash, thought up a new wrinkle. After finding that the authentic pieces he had picked up in Paris and London would fetch only a fraction of their worth at local antique shops, he decided to unload them on the highest bidders.

The Parke-Bernet Galleries were commissioned to auction off the props and, although it rained the day of the public sale, thereby reducing the attendance, Mr. Logan still netted more than a quarter of the original expenditure of $12,000. There were twenty-six lots in all, the highest being $825 for a Steinway grand and the lowest, $35, for three tea trays.

Mr. Logan’s off-stage success, in this era of costly play production, may well spur some of his hard-pressed confreres to follow suit. Actually, when a show has been a rousing financial hit, no one worries unduly about what will happen to the well-worn set decorations. But in the case of flops or modest runs, whatever money can be realized on the still shiny items of furniture, bric-a-brac and costumes is sought—eagerly.

Other Methods

In contrast with Mr. Logan’s innovation, most producers rely on less spectacular methods for prop disposal. They sell or rent items to TV studios, or sell them to out-of-town theatres or second-hand shops. Occasionally, props are stored for future use by the more active of the producing concerns. Sometimes they are burned (when there are no buyers and the price of storage is too high). Once in a while, choice items find their way into the homes of producers and other upper-echelon members of the company.

There are several known instances of showmen having furnished their homes and offices with chairs, couches, tables, lamps and other odds and ends selected for their productions by scenic designers. One producer foresightedly decorated a set with numerous volumes of second-hand books he had always wanted to read. (They now fill two wall-length cases in his home.) And a producing firm, now defunct, got off to an elegant start by furnishing its offices in midtown with Victorian pieces donated by the Shuberts’ warehouse. The furniture—orphaned by dead musical comedies—included two secretaries, a crystal chandelier and garlande mirrors and perfume tables.

Some producers appropriate items of trifling value from the sets of their plays as mementoes of the production. Producer Harald Bromley, for instance, saved a pair of angels on pedestals that were designed for “Glad Tidings,” and later planted them on either side of the stage as a special decoration for “Dead Pigeon.” Between plays, the angels rest at Mr. Bromley’s country home in Brewster, N. Y. Miss Theresa Helburn of the Theatre Guild, has no less than forty items, all from Guild productions, decorating her office. They include a tartan from “Mary of Scotland,” a prop star from “Carousel,” a garter from “Oklahoma!,” a dagger from “Othello,” a gold bracelet from “Time of Your Life,” a gold fan from “Taming of the Shrew,” a shoe from “Caesar and Cleopatra” and a cigarette from “Idiot’s Delight.”

Leading ladies like Helen Hayes frequently keep favorite costumes for sentiment’s sake after their plays close, but leading men tend to abandon theirs—and they often seem to turn up on press agents. A green slipover worn by Lee Cobb in “Death of a Salesman” found its way to publicity man Arthur Cantor; another press agent is still wearing a gray flannel suit that was part of the debris from a flop called “The Biggest Thief in Town” a few seasons ago.

Supporting actors and actresses, when they do not find themselves the recipients of free stage paraphernalia, are known to put in modest bids for useful items. Thus, a set of $450 draperies used in last season’s “The Prescott Proposals” was acquired for $25 by an enterprising family man. It is probable that an attractive apartment could be furnished very inexpensively by this sort of shopping around; anyone who plans to go about furnishing his quarters in this way merely needs unlimited patience, a taste that doesn’t conflict with that of the producer’s wife, and an eye for a flop (furnishings from hit shows are apt to be pretty threadbare by the end of a run).

Working Props

Some props, of course, are fairly impervious to wear and tear, but the producer knows this as well as you do and the chances are he will store the hardier items. Take “Angel in the Pawnshop.” More than 1,000 antiques and other pieces were displayed on the stage during its run a few seasons back. The producers stored most of them in their New Jersey warehouse and have since found a practical use for many of them. The musical instruments were used in “Hazel Flagg” and “Two on the Aisle.” “The Girl in the Pink Tights” had a French restaurant scene in which many of the “Pawnshop” props appeared; the umbrella with which Jeanmaire made her entrance in the same show was also from “Pawnshop.” Between shows, the props are rented out to TV studios.

Producers sometimes practically are forced to give away their painstakingly executed sets and costumes. Mike Todd had to sell his $200,000 “Night in Venice” scenery (for the operetta produced in 1952-53 at Jones Beach) to New York State for $750 because it would have been too expensive to dismantle it and ship it back to Manhattan for storage. The state intends to use the lumber for its parks.

Also disposed of at bargain prices not too long ago were the props and costumes from “Carnival in Flanders.” Some of the gowns went to Minsky’s burlesque in Newark. Minsky’s abbreviated the bodices.

Gelb, Arthur. “Whither Go Those Props?” The New York Times, 21 Nov. 1954, p. X3.

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Stage Scenery and the Men who Paint It (part 2), 1908

The following is a few select portions from an article in Theatre magazine in 1908. I posted the beginning of the article a few months ago:

by Mary Gay Humphreys

[Mr. Unitt at the Lyceum Theatre said,] “There is a story told of a firm of which one of the members thought a chandelier would look well in the scene. So he went out and bought a fine crystal affair. At the dress rehearsal he noticed it was not lighted, and demanded the reason. He was told that the act took place in the afternoon, and the light was coming in the windows.

“He went to the back of the house where his partner asked the same question, and was told the same answer.

“‘Well, light it. Who in h–l’s goin’ to stop us?’

“The anecdote gives the note which dominates a large part of theatrical production to-day, ‘Who in h–l’s goin’ to stop us?’…

Ernest Gros
Ernest Gros

“In the evolution of the scenery of a play, the scene painter is or should have the manuscript to read. In the rush of affairs now he may see only one act, or perhaps only the scenario. In the meantime the stage manager has made a plot and works out the exits and entrances on exact lines. Then the stage manager, author and scene painter get together and consult. That, at least, is the way they must do to get the best results. The scene painter sees only the pictorial side and must be held to the practical necessities of the case. One of these is that the wall scenes must be folded that they can be put in the six feet of doors, for scenery must travel. Fireproofing is another great handicap. This is usually done by painting on fireproof cloth, of which the chemicals are pretty apt to affect the colors. Another difficulty is the harmonizing of real things with the artificial. The use of real antiques, real palms, real flowers and foliage does not produce as successful results as when purely artificial scenery and stage properties are depended on.”…

[Mr. Homer Emens said,] “He must have an instinctive knowledge of effects. A handsome thing may not look handsome behind the footlights. An expensive stuff may look cheap. It is a fact that painted properties look more real than do the real things…

On the edge of things, in one of those architectural monoliths described, Mr. Ernets Gros, the scene painter, was found. His office was interesting with a collection of stage models which could be identified as scenes on the Belasco stage. Here was a scene painter’s library filled with handsome volumes labelled “Greece,” “Rome”—every nation, ancient and modern—books of epochs, periods, archaeology, costumes were represented, as well as periodicals of the most luxurious types in paper, illustration and text. Truly an equipment…

“Modern developments have not helped us in the least,” said Mr. Gros. “Scene painting has in no way advanced. The whole matter lies with the manager. If he is a man with artistic perceptions we have one result. If he depends on his advertising, we have another…

“The first thing the scene painter does is to prepare his model. Then he gives the stage carpenter the measurements. When the frame is ready the painting proceeds. Dry colors only are used; no drop of oil goes into scene painting. Fire-proofing has added to our labors by its effect on the colors. When the scenery is ready comes the problem of lighting, which must be determined by experiment. The electric light is brutal. We try to control it by the use of different media, but in no way can we get at the softness and mystery of gas.”

Stage scenery and the men who paint it. M. G. Humphreys, il. Theatre 8: 203-4, v-vi, Aug 1908.