"Dream Candles"

I just bought one of these candles for Appropriate, at Victory Gardens and I'm blown away. Chicago has particularly strict regulations about open flame onstage, so strict that in most theatres the regulations boil down to "no open flame of any kind ever."

I've tried lots of fake flame candles and always been disappointed and usually need to find ways to obscure the audience's view of the effect in order to make the ugly fake flame less obvious. Once I opened the Dream Candle I ordered, I was tempted to ask the actors to turn it so that the flame was more present for the audience, it was just so believable and so cool.

The candles are made by a company called Luminara and are sold through a number of dealers. I bought mine online at frontgate.com.

The candles can be turned off and on using a switch on the bottom, or using a small wireless remote. Be aware the remote has very little range, and isn't terribly reliable from more than a few feet away.

My candle cost me just over $50, but for the amount of use that I am sure it will get in future productions, and the size of the problem it solved, it believe it was worth the investment.

Wooden Axe

For Paulus at Silk Road Rising, we needed an ax for the final scene (a decapitation that is pretty awesome and very theatrical). Initially the ax was only going to be raised in the air, then we planned for lights to shift away from the executioner to someone holding the decapitated head (more on that in a future post). The look of the entire show is very utilitarian and "constructivist". I went to Menards and bought this basic ax.  

As rehearsals progressed, we realized that stopping at the top of the ax swing was not going to work, we needed the actor to complete his swing of the ax back down. This was all very theatrical, and blocked so that the actor being beheaded was in no danger. In order to protect our actors it was very important to have an ax which was lighter and easier to control. 

I remembered, several years ago, having a similar problem while working on the murder mystery weekends at Allenberry Playhouse. My master carpenter at the time used a large chunk of wood to cut and shape a wooden axe head to fit onto a pre-fab ax handle. I decided to try to recreate the project. 

First, I took mulitiple photos of the real axe in order to figure out the shape. 

Next I sketched out a basic shape onto a piece of 2x6. I cut the shape out with a jigsaw and began shaping it on the belt sander, slowly rounding out the back side, and narrowing the front to a "sharp" blade edge. I also used a set of chisels a few times to remove larger wood shavings and speed the process. 

Here is the mostly finished blade.

 One of the biggest challenges was cutting out the center hole in the blade in order to slide it onto the ax handle. I ended up taking large chunks out by drilling through with various sizes of drill bits, then taking out the bits in between with my chisels. 

 Replacement ax handles, like this one can be easily purchased at most hardware stores.

 I painted the ax with several coats of metallic black spray paint, sanding between each layer to smooth the finish. Then fitted the ax head onto the handle and added a touch of silver to the blade edge. 

Even from a few feet away, people were surprised to discover the ax wasn't real. 

Thanks to Naugy Peterson for coming up with this elegant and sturdy solution the first time. 

When should contracts be renegotiated

So this is more of a question than a statement, but I am starting to wonder when I should consider changes to the script and budget as motivations to insist on contract renegotiation.

Two recent conversations led me to this post.

The first was a conversation with a production manager who told me that one of her newest lessons came from a Tech Director (TD). He told her that if the budget of a show is increased, he always insists on an increase in pay. He logic was this; When he signs onto a project, he is agreeing on a certain amount of pay for a certain amount of work, namely as much scenery as can be built with the budget designated. Production managers and producers often decide, if a set estimate comes in over budget, to redistribute money, and increase the set budget in order to get the set desired. Unfortunately, this TD contends, that means more work for the TD, as more money means more scenery. This TD insists on renegotiating his contract if the budget has changed, because this means he is being asked to build more for the same pay.
This is something, in props, that I would never have considered. Often in my work, the more money I have, the easier my job becomes, because I can spend less time looking for the absolute best price possible.
The contract renegotiation that this TD spoke of seems very do-able, since in most cases the budget is listed in the contract. It is not hard to explain that a changed budget, changes the written terms of the contract. Having this in mind has convinced me to make sure all future contracts explicitly state my budget.

The second conversation I had is a bit trickier and also a more common problem.
A costume designer I regularly work with told me that she was frustrated with a current project. After she had signed her contract, the script was edited. In the new draft there was a huge prosthetic costume/makeup effect that had not been included in the first draft she had been given. She had taken a low paying show with the understanding that it was also an easy show. Now it wasn't an easy show. She felt bitter, stuck and taken advantage of. The conversation made me wonder if maybe I should think about asking for a clause in my contract that states that the pay and budget are based on the draft of the script that I had been given to review. I want the ability to reopen conversations about budget and fee if changes in future drafts significantly alter my workload.

These are just thoughts right now, but I would love to hear your thoughts and experiences. Do you have specific clauses you ask for in contracts? Have you even had to alter a contract based on changes to the script or to the design?

Green Tea Frappuccino

For Broken Fences at 16th Street, we needed three Starbucks Green Tea Frappuccinos. The director would have loved to have something real, but we agreed that the cost of something real, and the labor involved in prepping something for each performance would be too much.
We decided on a compromise. The drink itself would be fake, but we would add whipped cream on top that would be real, that way the cream could stick naturally to the straw, the actors could take the straws out and lick the whipped cream off them, and could make a very convincing slurping noise by sucking on the straw.

 To start this project, again I went with model magic. It air dries, so that it could be formed to fit the cup and dry in place, and it comes in nice pastel colors that would be perfect for the tea. 

 I pressed the model magic into the cup, trying to fill as much space as possible, leaving a hole through the middle for the straw. 

 The finished dried product looked fantastic, and looked even better with the whipped cream on top. 

In all of my experience with model magic I had always found that it stayed strong with a firm skin. that seemed easy to wipe clean. I had the assistant stage manager rinse the cups out nightly in order to keep them from getting sticky or disgusting. Unfortunately it turns out that either the cream or washing was slowly eating at the Model Magic, the stage manager emailed me concerned that the actors were drinking dissolved clay. She wondering what the clay was, if it was toxic and if something could be done to fix the situation.

To fix the situation, I ended up using wax. I melted down a small amount on my stove, poured the wax into the cup and then slowly poured it back out, letting it coat and seal all the model magic. 

 The wax is far less porous, should not absorb the cream and water in the same way, and should rinse clean very easily after each performance. 

Egg carton spiders

This project, for the children's show Click Clack Boo, at Lifeline theatre feels like it belongs on Pinterest more than on my blog. In this play the animals on the farm are planning a Halloween party. I was a little confused about how to proceed with the decorations for the party at the end, until I happened across this picture. 

Of course! Cow, Pig, Hen and Duck would use the supplies they had around the farm to make the decorations. 

I made a couple of these milk jug ghosts, made some paper chains, with jute rope twisted through them, and then had the idea for these spiders. 

 First I cut a 12 egg carton in half. 

 I left the center two egg spaces whole and cut the outer four into strips to make the legs. Scissors worked well on this Styrofoam egg carton, for the recycled paper ones I found that a sharp exact-o knife or box cutter was a better tool. 

 I painted my spiders black, 

and then added googly eyes, because everything is better with googly eyes. 

Reusable "wax" seals

For Northanger Abbey, at Remy Bumppo Theatre, we had a series of letters (it seems like all Jane Austen plays have lots of letters) The director asked that all of the letters have wax seals on them. 

 To make the wax seals I started with sheets of circular label stickers from the office supply store.

 I added hot glue to the top of each sticker, creating a rough outline of the circle and filling in randomly in the center, then painted them with two coats of red paint.

 Once everything was dry they were easy to remove and stick to the letters. 

It was also fast and easy enough to make that I was able to create four full sheets. There were plenty of spares to leave with the stage managers to stick to new letters if the old ones wore out. 

*side note- I always try to create multiples of paper props to leave with the run crew as paper can be easily damaged or destroyed during the run of the show. I also often email digital copies of the paper props as an additional backup measure. 

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.

Edible Thai Noodles

For Broken Fences at 16th Street, we needed a few take-out dishes of Thai food. For three of the four dishes used thin strips of torn muslin, added beads or torn up paper pieces of different colors, and tossed them with some glue and a couple drops of food coloring. 

One of the dishes, however, needed to be edible. The director suggested rice, but with no microwave or stove that is easy to access at this particular theatre, I knew it would have been too much work for the ASM to prep something the actor would feel okay about eating nightly. 

Instead I decided to make a noodle dish. 

 I bought lots of small corn tortillas (bonus- super inexpensive) and cut them into this strips. 

layered and piled into the tub they look pretty convincing. They looked even more convincing when the actor got a few on his fork to eat them.