Tag Archives: history

Features

The Condensed History of Specter Studios

Congratulations to te winner of my very first contest, Shane Dreher! Though all the comments offered plenty of comic potential, his provided the most unexpected types of laughs.

I think it would be great if the two old ladies in Arsenic and Old Lace had bats to beat people with the entire play between their witty banter.

I also have some more information on Specter Studios, the company that makes the foam baseball bats which Shane just won. Eanna Holton, the Business and Operations Manager over there, sent me the (condensed) history of Specter Studios:

The current incarnation of the company began in 2004 when it was purchased by Scott Tyson And Mark Marsen. Orginally, they were looking to purchase a building to transistion from being home haunters into official devotees of all things creepy. At the time, Specter (then Spector) had both building and business. Long story short, they passed on the building and bought the company instead! There were a lot of early obstacles, not the least of which were falsified financial documents from the previous owners and though Mark and Scott had already built another strong company, it was not in either the haunt or manufacturing arenas.
There was a lot of trial and error, but Specter kept learning and growing with regard to its reach and its efficiency. In 2010, we began a new era at Specter Studios and have been hard at work with 11 of Pittsburgh’s most talented artists creating some really unique, high quality masks, costumes, and props. We have 2 full time designers who create the majority of our designs, but the floor is open for anyone within the studio to suggest ideas or even try their hand at the sculpting. A good example of that is our Opera Clown Mask. It was sculpted by Mike Pezzulo AKA GYPZY who says he hadn’t touched clay since high school! This mask quickly became, and still is, one of our most popular products! As mentioned, the 11 people who work at our studio are all artists in their own. Ranging from graphic design,music, fashion desgin, painting and drawing, to special makeup effects and circuit bending! We all feel very lucky to belong to such a motley crew.

So there you have it!  Have a happy Memorial Day weekend!

Education

Props at the Victoria and Albert Museum

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While it is interesting to read about how props have been constructed and used throughout the long history of theatre, it is rare to find surviving examples of actual props from bygone days. After a production, props are either integrated into a theatre’s prop storage, taken home by the cast and crew, or simply disposed of. I would hazard a guess that most historical props are kept in private collections or buried deep in the back of stock rooms at old theatres, with no way of knowing just what is out there. Luckily, some of these items do make their way to museums who recognize their historical value. The Victoria and Albert Museum in London has a few such items in their collection related to props.

Merchant of Venice bond
Merchant of Venice bond, image © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

The first is this bond from Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice. For those unfamiliar with the story, Shylock lends Antonio (the aforementioned merchant) 3000 ducats; if Antonio cannot repay, he must give Shylock a pound of his flesh. This bond secures the deal and is a critical prop during the courtroom scene where Antonio’s fate must be decided.

This bond was used by Henry Irving during the production of The Merchant of Venice which opened at the Lyceum Theatre in 1879 (the museum states it opened in January, but all accounts list its opening as November). The production was designed by Hawes Craven. It is made of beige vellum mounted on cream cotton cloth with black petersham ribbon and burgundy-painted metal seal. The dust and age is a deliberate treatment done by the prop maker. Interestingly, this prop has some areas torn on purpose and stitched together with double cotton thread; it seems likely this was done so the same prop could be torn up each performance and reattached before the next one.

Irving’s production of Merchant was one of the most influential at that time, as well as one of the most popular and long-running. You can find scores of books and articles delving into every aspect of this production and his performance.

This prop came to the British Theatre Museum (a branch of the V&A which closed in 2007 and whose collection was absorbed into the main museum) in 1968 by Lady Wolfit. It had probably belonged to her husband, Sir Donald Wolfit, a well-known English theatre actor-manager, who had died just a few months prior to the Lady’s donation.

Property Sword
Property Sword, image © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Next is this property sword, also used by Henry Irving for an 1895 adaptation of King Arthur. The sets, costumes and props for this show were designed by Arthurian artist Edward Burne-Jones. This prop is based off of a sword used during the Holy Roman Empire for coronation ceremonies, known as the “Sword of Saint Maurice”.

Property Sword
Property Sword, image © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

The prop itself has a pommel made of carved brazil nut wood with an embossed and painted metal scabbard. It was built between 1894 and 1895.

Bakst Designs
Bakst Designs, image © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

The final image is a drawing showing the stage property designs done by Léon Bakst for a production of the ballet La Spectre de la rose at the Diaghilev Ballets Russes in Monte Carlo in 1911. The pencil, watercolor, gouache and gold paint drawings show a green wing cushioned chair, a sewing frame behind a curtain on a curtain rod, a harp, and a bed with blanket and pillows. You can find more of his set designs on his official site, as well as his costume designs. This is the only example of his prop designs that I have ever come across.

Reprints

Daggers and Poniards of the Christian Middle Ages

I’ve previously shown illustrations and descriptions of Ancient Egyptian weapons,  Ancient Greek helmets and weapons, and Ancient Roman weapons. Here are some daggers and poniards from the Christian Middle Ages.

Daggers and Poniards of the Christian Middle Ages

  1. British cutlass, tenth century. It bears on the blade the names “Edwardus,” and “prins agile.” It is attributed to Edward II.
  2. Iron dagger, about a foot long, thirteenth century.
  3. Iron dagger, thirteenth century. Blade measures about 12 inches, and the haft about 5 inches.
  4. Iron poniard, probably Scottish, fourteenth century.
  5. Same as above.
  6. Poniard, beginning of the fourteenth century.
  7. Iron dagger, about 14 inches long, beginning of the fourteenth century. The haft is very long.
  8. Iron dagger, about 19 1/2 inches long, end of the fourteenth century.
  9. Iron dagger, 14 1/2 inches long, end of the fourteenth century. The handle is of carved bone.
  10. Iron dagger, end of the fourteenth or beginning of the fifteenth century.
  11. Poniard, end of the fourteenth century.
  12. Dagger, fifteenth century.
  13. Scottish dagger, about 14 1/2 inches long, wooden handle, fifteenth century.
  14. Dagger with single thumb ring, about 16 inches long, fifteenth century.
  15. Dagger with double thumb ring, sixteenth century. The two rings were placed there to fix the dagger on a shaft, or at the end of a lance, to resist cavalry.
  16. Dagger, anelace, or Verona dagger, fifteenth century.
  17. Dagger, anelace, fifteenth century.
  18. Dagger, fifteenth century.
  19. Dagger of a German lansquenet, sixteenth century, about 14 inches long. Polished steel sheath.
  20. Dagger of German lansquenet, sixteenth century.
  21. Main gauche, Spanish, with the inscription “Viva Felipe V.,” which shows that this weapon was in use in the year 1701.
  22. Stiletto (Spitzdolch), about 12 inches long, end of the sixteenth century. In Germany these weapons were also called Panzerbrecher, or cuirass-breaker.
  23. Dagger, Swiss, sixteenth century. These daggers are often provided with small knives, which served to cut the thongs of the armour, to pierce holes, and for various purposes.
  24. Dagger, German, sixteenth century.
  25. Poniard, German, with wavy blade, very short and broad.
  26. Poniard, German, sixteenth century. The guard has four quillons.
  27. Main gauche, sixteenth century.
  28. Main gauche, German, sixteenth century.
  29. Main gauche, German, about 20 inches long, sixteenth century. Engraved handle.
  30. Main gauche, German, with indented blade for breaking the enemy’s sword; thumb ring, and quillons curved in inverse directions; sixteenth century.
  31. Main gauche, German, with indented blade for breaking swords, sixteenth century.
  32. Close-up of indented blade of previous dagger.
  33. Large German brise-épée, sixteenth century.
  34. Close-up of indented blade of previous dagger.
  35. Poniard, German, sixteenth century.
  36. Large main gauche, German, with indented quillons, and grated guard as sword-breaker, seventeenth century. It measures about 25 by 10 inches.
  37. Stiletto, German, called Panzerbrecher, or cuirass-breaker, about 12 inches long, sixteenth century.
  38. Poniard, about 10 inches long, richly studded with precious stones. This weapon belonged to Sobieski, King of Poland.
  39. Poniard, German, called Panzerbrecher. The numbers on the blade probably used for measuring the bore of cannons.

The illustrations and descriptions have been taken from An Illustrated History of Arms and Armour: From the Earliest Period to the Present Time, by Auguste Demmin, and translated by Charles Christopher Black. Published in 1894 by George Bell.

Education

Who was the first property maker?

When I say “the first property maker”, I mean in terms of a professional person who earns a living making props. People have made props throughout history in many theatrical traditions; they certainly haven’t appeared from nowhere. Many traditions probably sustained quite a class of artisans devoted to the theater, particularly in Ancient Greece and Rome. Certainly too, there are many forms of theatre outside of our Western traditions. What I am looking at is the first group of people known as “property makers” who could make a living building props for professional theater. For that, we must look to the origins of what, in many ways, has become our idea of modern theatre and performing arts, the Elizabethans.

The pinnacle of Tudor, Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre centered around the monarchy, which hired many types of artists to perform at Court, festivals and pageants, and licensed other forms of entertainment throughout the city. Though various officers were tasked with this job earlier, the first official “Master of the Revels” with an independent office was Sir Thomas Cawarden in 1544. The office and storage facilities were consolidated to a dissolved Dominican monastery at Blackfriars. Cawarden was known for his skill in taking sketches and turning them into fully-realized productions. This required a whole “production team”, as well as the ability to communicate the needs of the stage to a group of skilled craftsmen who understood the special considerations which theatre requires. After Cawarden’s death in 1559, the office moved to the priory of St. John of Jerusalem in Clerkenwell.

The office moved several times throughout its history; in 1608, it came to be located in the Whitefriars district outside the western city wall of London. The Master of Revels at the time, Edmund Tilney, described that the Office:

…consisteth of a wardrobe and other several [i.e. separate] rooms for artificers to work in (viz. tailors, embroiderers, property makers, painters, wire-drawers and carpenters), together with a convenient place for the rehearsals and setting forth of plays and other shows….”

[Halliday, F. E. A Shakespeare Companion 1564–1964. Baltimore, Penguin, (1964)]

Tilney also noted that the office served as a residence for the Master and his family, as well as other personnel.

The records kept by the Office of the Revels informs much of what we know about the artisans hired to furnish the theatre with its physical “stuff” and the money spent on materials. It was not just writers and actors who were beginning to develop into a new profession at this time, but a whole range of carpenters, tailors, plasterers, wiredrawers, painters, plumbers and others who were becoming a new “theatrical artisan” class. Some of these artisans appear in the records steadily employed for periods of thirty or even forty years.

One of the first artists to be listed in the Revels records as a “property maker” is a man named John Carowe (or Carow or Caro). He was first employed in 1547 for the coronation of Edward, and continued to work as a property maker, joiner and carver until his death in 1574. In these records, “property making refers” not just to hand props like heads and swords, but also to the custom construction of stage furniture and large scenic devices (such as wagons and hell-mouths). In this account of expenses paid between December 1573 and January 1574, we see some of the things Carowe has provided to the Revels:

John Caro, Property maker, for money to him due for sundry parcells Holly and Jug for the play of Predor.–Fishes counterfet for the same, viz Whiting, Place, Mackarell, &c.–A payle for the castell top–Bayes for sundry purposes,–Lathes for the hollo tree–Hoopes for tharbor and top of an howse,–A truncheon for the Dictator,–Paste and paper for the Dragons head,–Deale boordes for the Senat Howse,–A long staf to reach up and downe the lights,–Fawchins for Farrants play–Pynnes styf and greate for paynted clothes,–Formes ii. and stooles xii, &c.–In all lxixs. ixd [69 shillings, 9 pence].

Carowe was also in charge of overseeing other property makers, as we can see in this account of the 1572 Christmas Revels, separated into individual projects:

Propertymakers: Iohn Caro, Iohn Rosse, Nicholas Rosse, Iohn Rosse Iunior, Thomas Sturley, Iohn Ogle, Iohn David for Caro.

Propertymakers, Embroiderers, and Haberdashers: Iohn Caro, William Pilkington, Iohn Sharpe, Iohn ffarington, Iohn Tuke, Iohn Owgle, Iohn David for Caro, Ione Pilkington

Propertymakers, Embroiderers, and Haberdashers: Iolin Carowe, William Pilkington, Iohn ffarrington, Iohn Tuke, Ione Pilkington, Thomas Tysant, Iohn David for Caro.

You can see one of the property makers is named John Rosse, and another John Rosse Junior; like many crafts at this time, the evidence points to fathers passing their skills along to sons to keep the theatrical traditions alive. It would seem that Carowe made some of his props in his own shop, which must have been thriving, while others were constructed in the Revels Offices mentioned at the beginning.