Category Archives: Showcases

Showing off the prop portfolios of people, prop shop spaces, and props for shows.

Showcases

A Wall of Posters

Berkeley Rep is currently working on a new musical based on Green Day’s American Idiot album. The set will include massive walls completely plastered with band posters and fliers. On her blog, Lisa Lázár explains where these posters are coming from:

We all met up in front of a punk club in Berkeley (which is credited as being the place where Green Day got its start), and ripped posters off off telephone poles.

A lot of the posters on the set are being printed and photocopied by the scenic artists, but a good percentage is being augmented with found objects. Earlier this month, she actually put a call out for such posters:

Could you go out in the next few days and tear down some show posters, and mail them to me?

We’re covering the gigantic walls of our upcoming show with this sort of thing, and we would like as many real posters as possible.

Propping a show occassionally calls for finding an obscene amount of  one specific item. It always requires getting creative and thinking outside the box to avoid spending your entire budget.

Don’t forget to check out the rest of Lisa’s blog for more great stories and tutorials from the world of scenic art!

Showcases

War Horse

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War Horse is currently playing in London’s West End, and is tentatively scheduled to open in New York in 2011. In “Making Horses Gallop and Audiences Cry“, Patrick Healy gives more in-depth information about the show and the amazing puppets, designed by Adrian Kohler:

The basic construction material for the horses is cane, which Mr. Kohler soaked to make it more moldable. “It is light, flexible, and the figure increases in strength as more and more struts are bound together,” he said. The struts create the look of joints in the horses’ legs and necks.

Silk patches were then applied to gauze to suggest the animals’ skin patterns and also partly to conceal the two puppeteers inside each adult horse.

The article also has a great number of photographs showing the puppets.

The puppets were constructed by the Handspring Puppet Company, a South African puppet group. It was founded in 1981 by Basil Jones and Mr. Kohler. On the website, they give a little more information about the horse puppets:

Some of the horses are fully articulated with two interior and one exterior manipulator and because they have aluminium spinal structures, they can carry human riders. Other horses are more abstract with no legs and only one manipulator.

The Giraffe puppet from Tall Horse, made by Handspring Puppet Company
The Giraffe puppet from Tall Horse, made by Handspring Puppet Company

The horses are based on the designs first used in Handspring’s production of Tall Horse, about a giraffe. Elsewhere on their website, they describe this puppet:

The puppet was constructed from a frame of carbon fibre rods and takes two puppeteers, on stilts, to operate it. The puppet is fully mechanical – its head, ears and tail can be manipulated by the puppeteers, through a complex system that allows the puppeteers, inside the body frame of the giraffe, to manipulate the appendages through bicycle brake cables.

The giraffe can turn its head, flap its ears and tail and walk with the swaying, graceful gait that anyone who has enjoyed the sight of the magnificent creature in the wild will recognise. Manned by two puppeteers on stilts, the giraffe is the central character of Tall Horse, which is a magical tale of the discovery of Europe by Africans.

If you are interested in learning more, Handspring has a few books out. Journey of the Tall Horse: A Story of African Theatre describes the production process for Tall Horse, while The Horse’s Mouth: Staging Morpurgo’s War House gives an in-depth look at the current production of War Horse. Until then, I’m looking forward to 2011!

Showcases

The People Who Prop Up the Shows

The People Who Prop Up the Shows, by Davi Napoleon, is an oldie but a goodie. Though written in 2001, it still has a lot of great information on a number of the top prop professionals and how they got into the business.

photograph by Eric Hart
photograph by Eric Hart

Some of the names in the article have been mentioned before on this blog. Jim Guy, the propmaster of the Milwaukee Rep, was highlighted in my Milwaukee Rep’s Prop Shop post.

They also showcase the Berkeley Rep prop shop. I looked through my archives and was stunned that I haven’t written about them yet. Not only does the Rep maintain a wonderful blog, but the prop shop regularly contributes all sorts of behind-the-scenes articles.