Here is a great video showing puppet and effects tests for the “Goa’uld” aliens from Stargate SG-1, one of my favorite sci-fi television shows. This comes from the Steve Johnson FX channel on YouTube; I’ve linked to it before, but if you haven’t seen it yet, it has dozens of videos like this one to watch and enjoy.
We are three-quarters of the way through technical rehearsals of Shakespeare in the Park, so I’ll be back to a regular writing schedule soon. I also have some potentially exciting news coming up around the middle of the month. Stay tuned!
I’ve just returned from this year’s USITT in Charlotte, NC. I have a lot going through my head at the moment, so I’ll show off some of the video I shot at the Tech Olympics. Each year, undergraduates at USITT can compete in these Olympics in a variety of events, such as knot-tying, hanging and focusing lights, and folding a drop. Many technical theatre departments have their own event. For props, the challenge is to strike a table setting to a prop table, and set up a different table setting. Randy Lutz and Tracy Armagost from the Santa Fe Opera were the judges. Contestants are ranked by the speed they complete the task in, but they are penalized for things such as missing their spike marks, making too much noise, or dragging a tablecloth on the ground. I filmed DH from Elon University doing the challenge so you would not miss out on all the fun:
American Theatre Wing, the organization best known as the founder of the Tony Awards, has an ongoing feature called “In the Wings“. It’s a series of short videos which highlight people in different backstage roles. The latest video highlights a prop master.
Desiree Maurer
Desiree Maurer is the prop master at Playwrights Horizon here in New York City. Incidentally, she had my position as Assistant Props Master at the Public Theater before that.
The video series are a great look on all the different aspects of what goes into making a theatre run. I also suggest checking out the one on Ruth Sternberg, production manager. Ruth is our production manager at the Public, and the video shows a lot of clips from shows I’ve worked on there. You can also catch a brief cameo of me in this video when she is checking out the bird puppets for Winter’s Tale.
Ruth Sternberg
Martha Donaldson is a frequent stage manager here as well, and in the “In the Wings” episode on stage management, we see her working on our production of The Bacchae from 2009.
Martha Donaldson
Finally, I’d like to point you to the episode on puppetry design with Emily DeCola. Not only is she part of the fantastic Puppet Kitchen and great fun to work with, but she’s one of the puppeteers on our upcoming production of Compulsion, which starts tech today.
It’s January 7th, you know what that means? I just had an epiphany! Get it? Sorry, with Under the Radar in full swing all over the building, Compulsion now in rehearsals, Timon of Athens starting rehearsals next week, plus writing magazine articles and my book on prop-making, I only have a list of links today. But they are very interesting ones that should keep you busy for a long time.
Steve Johnson has spent 30 years designing and building all sorts of monsters for films, such as Ghostbusters, Spiderman 2, The Abyss, and a ton of others. He’s now uploading all the photos and behind-the-scenes video he’s shot during his career (most of which hasn’t been seen before) to the Steve Johnson YouTube Channel. Sweet.
