Greenware breakable dishes

It is an old theatrical trick to use "greenware" when plates or other dishes need to be broken onstage. Greenware is essentially un-fired pottery.

I had a bit of trouble tracking some down in Chicago, but was eventually able to speak to a manager of a "paint your own pattery" store, who was able to order them directly from his supplier when he went out for his weekly pickup. I needed enough mugs, plates and bowls to smash one set every show for ten runs (Four perfomances, plus 6 rehearsals).

I was able to get the pieces for $3 each, which was about what I was expecting. For a long running show, this would have been a serious portion of my budget, but for this short run, the price was reasonable.  

It did take much longer than expected to track down the pieces and then to get them from the supplier. Next time I will already have made the contact (if I am here in the city) but I still will make sure to start the process from the moment I have a hint of needing breakable objects, to make sure we have them in plenty of time.

Once we determined that the pieces worked during tech, the biggest problem was that they seemed obvious. As soon as the actor picked up the dish of the shelf you could guess he was going to break it. The simple grey color was begging to be smashed. So we decided to add a pattern. The first thing I tried were some wide artist's markers, but the not-quite-dry clay soaked up the ink, dried out the markers and gummed up the tips. It looked great, but was time consuming and wasteful of the nice markers. 

 I took a trip to Blick Art supplies to find a solution, and the man there recommended I try oil pastels. They worked perfectly. I was able to trace lines smoothly and quickly on the surface of the dishes, and a coat of spray sealer over each dish kept the pastel from rubbing off when I was finished. 

 Best of all, the design achieved the desired effect. From a distance the dishes looked so nicely designed that seeing them smashed was much more shocking. 

 I have very few photos of the smashed dishes. They crumble easily (which is the point), but since the scene continued with 20 more minutes of very physical comedy after the plates were smashed, the pieces onstage were basically dust by the time we hit a break. 

This photo shows the sharpest point I could find on the smashed plate I was able to photograph. I was able to run my finger back and forth across this point without any pain. In fact, the only damage done by rubbing my finger across it, was to the plate, which became more worn down and rounded each time I dragged my finger across. 

One safety concern we did have to consider, as actors continued to walk back and forth on the smashed dishes in the scene, the dust go on their shoes. They tracked that dust around the stage, which caused things to get very slick and slippery. Once we realized the problem, we were able to mostly guard against it, and the stage crew made sure to be extra diligent when they cleaned at intermission, but it is something to be aware of and plan for if you can. 

Doug the Dummy

In A Tale of Two Cities, a young boy is supposed to be run down by a carriage and killed in the street. We couldn't cast a seven year old boy to just lay and pretend to be dead nightly. A dummy was needed, and it needed to be good. My cheap duct-tape dummies can be good when no one moves them, but this needed to be carried in and out realistically. When in someone's arms it needed flop convincingly and be articulated correctly.

 I started by building a wooden skeleton. To get the proportions right I measured my own body and then took two-thirds of each measurement (I figure a seven-year-old boy is about two-thirds my size).

For the elbow and knee joints I used small hinges. 

For neck, shoulder, hip and wrist joints I used an screw-eye in each side, and a S-hook between to get a more random natural movement. 

Late in the process I had to go back to these joints to wrap them in strips of muslin. Doug was looking pretty great in rehearsals, but the metallic clicking of these joints completely ruined the illusion. Wrapping the joints allowed them to keep their free natural movement, but muffled the sound considerably. 

Once all the joints were attached together, I started adding some muscle and flesh. I cut strips of quilt batting and wrapped them around each part of his body. 

Once I had added enough batting to fill out the shape I started adding clothing. The costumes department was kind enough to loan me some pieces that they didn't end up using.

We tried to stage the scene so that Doug's face would be hidden as much as possible, but he still needed to have something in case the audience got a glimpse of him. 

At a local costumes store, I bought the cheapest wig I could find, a cheap mask, and a pair of nylons. I attached the mask to Doug's head then pulled the nylons over his whole head. The nylons give the skin a much more natural look than the clearly plastic mask, and help smooth the transition between the mask and the rest of the head. 

And here is Doug fully dressed. He looks pretty convincing in person, and has certainly startled some of the theatre staff when they walk backstage. 

Decapitated Head

I tried a version of this project 4 years ago, when I was just starting out doing props. It didn't turn out very well. 

The idea was to find a cheap and durable item to serve as a decapitated head. We didn't need a realistic face or hair, as the head would be wrapped in a bloody cloth. We just needed believable shape and weight. 

The first time, I started with a base of a hard rubber ball, then tried to sculpt the face around it. I think I ended up getting the shape close to right, but the weight was all wrong. The way the head moved and swayed in the hand of the actor revealed immediately that it was too light, and therefor clearly fake. 

This time, I again planned to use masking tape to do the sculpting, but instead of the rubber ball, I started with a 5lb bag of sugar as my base. In addition to the weight, it had the added benefit of already being larger and a more oblong head-shape, which saved me some work in building up bulk. 

I covered the bag of sugar with an initial layer of the masking tape, to make sure the sugar was sealed and prevent me from accidentally causing a tear in the bag while I was working on it. 

Sculpting with masking tape is done by creating long twisted strands. I tear of a long piece, stick the other end to a table, then proceed to twist the tape, sticky side out, in to a long rope. 

The ropes have far more bulk that just a single layer of tape would. I layer the tape ropes, first all over to round out the base shape, 

And then gradually in a more deliberate manner to sculpt the face. 

Until I have something that I think will be believable. 

Once the head is completely sculpted, it needs the final finish. 

A couple layers of masking tape stuck flat and face down creates a nice smooth skin.

I meant to finish this post with a photo of the head, wrapped in the bloody cloth, but I never managed to get a photo of it. I am pleased to say though that it was a success. Just before the head was brought onstage, the ASM dipped it into a bowl of watered down stage blood. It was gruesomely effective as the actor hoisted the head in the air and we could see the blood dripping down onto the stage.

To keep everything in good shape, the ASM wiped the head down nightly so none of the blood dried onto it, and the bloody cloth was put in with the laundry, to make sure it didn't get crusty. 

Blood Jam

I'd like to take a moment to recommend a relatively new company producing fake blood for stage and film, using a unique recipe. The company is called Gravity and Momentum and their product is called Blood Jam. They are a local Chicago company, headed up by Greg Poljacik and Chris Yurwitz.

On a recent production, I decided to take a chance on something new, I'd been hearing a bit of a buzz around about a new blood that people wanted to try, but hadn't specifically talked to anyone who had tried it. I read a few testimonials online, was impressed by the ease with which people claimed the blood washed out, and decided that a show with a white painted set, where the actress in the white cotton dress gets coated in blood was a good place to test that.

I ordered a gallon of the blood jam. The costume designer and I tested the blood on some scraps of fabric and were very impressed. On the first preview, when the actress walked out onto the stage, we were disappointed, the yellow light was reacting all wrong with the colors in the blood. As the director told me in notes, "I wasn't sure if she'd just murdered someone, or if a cat had peed on her." Not the reaction you want.

I called up Greg and asked him what I could do. The blood needed to be darker and more opaque. He immediately offered to make me a whole new gallon in a darker color to suit my needs, and offered some advice on adding a few drops of green food coloring to the batch we had, in order to adjust the color until a new batch could be created. The adjustments worked fantastically, and the new batch I received two days later looked even better.

Also to the delight of the costume and set designers, we have yet to see a stain on either the costume or the set after a full week of previews.

After working with the blood, and hearing from many others who knew Chris and Greg about how awesome they are, I wrote Greg to ask a few more questions. Here are the questions and his answers.

I heard from someone at Oak Park Festival that you taught yourself chemistry in order to figure out a way to make an edible, non staining blood. Can you tell me a little be more about how this came about? Where you went to for information? 

I still remembered the chemistry basics from high school and I looked up information needed to fill in gaps as I experimented. I had worked on a show where I claimed I could make a blood that was edible and washed out (before I created Blood Jam) and was extremely embarrassed/humbled when I realized how truly tough that is! I went through and played with every known recipe out there. It didn't make sense, however, that it couldn't be done. So I put together some ideas and would chase each one down to see what happened. It took a full year of non-stop failure till I finally, accidentally, created the recipe for Blood Jam. It was a process that built on the successes and failures of each previous experiment to capitalize on what worked/didn't work and why. The best way to learn the practical side of chemistry!!

I went all over for info. I asked people, searched the web, read blogs and interviews of other blood makers, looked at other blood products, and tracked down product info from companies to figure out the chemical pieces I needed. Some stuff was hard or impossible to find so I had to infer many pieces and extrapolate info from one area and trust it would hold true for what I was doing. Much of the chemistry came from trying to understand what I had created after the fact! The original hypothesis would work (or not) and I had I figure out why the result was doing or not doing certain things before moving on. Fun and frustrating at the same time!

How do you two know each other, and what gave you the idea to partner on this venture? 

We have been close friends for eight years. My wife met Chris first through theater friends. Our close circle is considered family, when I told them what I was working on, none were surprised id be tinkering with this sort of thing, and everyone wanted to help in some way (and everyone definitely has!) Chris was able to financially get the company started and his business sense is what keeps the company grounded. He likes to say he is the Gravity and I am the Momentum (our company is Gravity and Momentum LLC). Without his grounding I would have flown in too many directions after the next project interest and ran the company bankrupt real fast!

What's next? Any new products in the works?

The immediate goals for the blood is to continue to tweak the color so that its the perfect blend for thickness and for when it gets thinned out. We nailed the washing/edible obstacle but the color obstacle is still quite difficult to get. Small adjustments one way or the other can make the blood look too brown, purple or orange when thinned out. Ideally we get it to the sweet spot where it looks like a nice, real red when first deployed and settled to a realistic dried bloodbrown over time.

We are also continuing to tweak the powder so its able to be applied to the skin more easily and discreetly. The powder works wonderfully for caplets, and would be crazy cool as a water activated effect on skin!

I am also playing with Fire Gels and starting data research on the effect of performance on the actor and audience. (See why Chris is vital! All over the place!). This is on top of still teaching, doing stunts and choreo! Soo, it may be a while till we finish but we planning on being around for a bit.

Running water onstage

About a year ago, when someone initially described this trick to me in a production meeting, I looked at him like he was crazy. "There is absolutely no way that will work, "I told him. But of course it did, and I had to admit I was wrong. So here is an explanation of how to create a very easy, very effective system for running water onstage. 

 

 First, the tools. The core of the system is a hudson sprayer/garden sprayer. These are available in the garden section at most hardware stores, but be aware they can be a seasonal item at some places, so you may have to order one and wait for shipping in the winter months.

 Then you need fittings that can allow you to attach the sprayer to your sink/water spout/drinking fountain etc.

 I bought this specific fitting to fit onto the tap of the sink.

 And this one, with the barbed end to fit into the end of the hose of the sprayer.

 Then a few connectors in between that step up sizes and connect mismatched ends to make it all fit together. You will notice I used thread tape (available in the plumbing section) on all of the connections between the pieces. It is important that your system holds air pressure, so you will need a tight seal on all joints.

 Then the system is connected to the sink that the tech director had installed in the counter.

 And we attach a pipe down through the sink sink drain into a bucket, so that the water draining out didn't make an unnatural sound.

And when you pump the garden sprayer and then turn on the faucet, you get a nice steady stream of water.

Now to explain why it works: 

The way the garden sprayer usually works is that, by pumping the top handle you create an excessive amount of pressure in the canister. When the handle is squeezed on the sprayer, the pressure has a way to be released. since the hose is attached to a straw, down at the bottom of the canister, the liquid at the bottom of the canister is the first thing to be pushed out through the hose. 

When you disconnect the hose from the sprayer, and connect it to a faucet, you get the same result. The system is closed and sealed until the faucet is turned on. At that point the pressure inside the canister forces the water out though the hose, and out the faucet. 

Please remember that you are only connecting to either the hot or the cold side of the sink. I connected to the cold, if the hot also got turned on, it resulted in an open spout in the system, and the water was allowed to go where it was not intended (creating a temporarily confusing mess). 

We also had a problem on this show because the garden sprayer was particularly cheap, and the effect occurred very late in the performance. Before during tech rehearsals we noticed that, while the system would function perfectly while setting up, by the time we got to the moment in the show, we would be getting no water. The pressure in the tank was slowly leaking out over the course of the show. The simple solution in this case was to run the hose out the back wall of the set to allow the ASM to pump up the tank just prior to the moment when it needed to work. 

UV Lamp

In Disconnect at Victory Gardens, one of the hardest pieces to figure out was a UV lamp that had to be assembled onstage and then light (why do play-writes do these things to us?)

First, just for fun, are a couple pictures of the box I created. By the way, I bought the perfect box at The Container Store, which I forget about sometimes, and then every few shows I am reminded how useful and awesome they are. Add a few collaged images printed in different sized, and it looks pretty sleek from the audience. 

The lamp, in it's deconstructed state fits perfectly inside the box with a fake set of instructions for assembling. 

When it comes out of the box, the lamp looks like this, with the top and base only attached together by the wire running between them. Also, totally unrelated, this is the image where you can best see the purple gel I added to help the light read as more UV and less white LED. 

As you can see in this next image, the lamp was originally constructed with the top fitting onto the base using a ball-in-socket type joint.  

Using my Dremel I ground the metal down on the ball so that it was flat on two sides. I also used the grinder on the Dremel to open up the hole in the socket a bit so that the flattened ball would slip right in.

Here you can see that it slipped on fairly easily without pinching the wire.

Finally the actress holds the base and twists the top into place. By rotating the top 90 degrees, she now has the rounded sides of the ball facing perpendicular to the slot. These sides of the ball are too wide to pass through the slot, so the top of the lamp is locked in place. 

And here is a picture of how the lamp looks fully assembled. 

Though I rewired the inside of the lamp several times (I broke lots of wires troubleshooting, and wired out the switch so I could give the lighting designer absolute control), I left the original plug and LEDs so the lamp was still functional. I especially loved hearing the audience around me quietly gasp when the light turns on because they weren't expecting it to actually work :)

Stage Hairspray

I am not sure of how many uses I will actually find for this, but I have just discovered a new product. 

 Fantasy FX canned fog.
This product has apparently been used extensively in recent years for productions of Hairspray.

I imagine this canned fog effect would have many uses, though I used it for a hairspray effect as well.

The fog inside has very little scent and hangs nicely in the air

A quick bit of spray adhesive on a recreated AquaNet Label

And we have a wonderful can of hairspray that doesn't leave any sort of sticky film on actresses, props, or the floor