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. 

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. 

This is my job- fake crack pipes

We all know that Google keeps track of our searches in order to try to create a detailed profile of who we are, and what are preferences are. I often wonder what they must think of me (I also wonder if I am on any government watch lists based on some of the things I have researched). 

For this show, I needed crack pipes. A fairly easy search sent me to several websites detailing how they could be made. One sent me to ask for a "straight shooter" at a liquor store. It is apparently a narrow glass tube, that I guess is used to mix up some types of cocktails, the liquor store had no idea what I was talking about, and I felt very awkward trying to explain why I needed this thing even though I didn't know what it was used for. 

 Next I went to a smoke shop/head shop. I explained that I wanted a narrow glass tube that would be the type that crack smokers would use to turn into a crack pipe. 

The conversation involved lots of verbal gymnastics as the clerk at the store tried to help me while still saying over and over that he didn't know what I was talking about. "I would hope that no one would use anything I sell for such a thing. We only sell items intended for smoking LEGAL tobacco products. These small glass tubes over here look a bit like what you are describing, but see how they are meant to fit into this PERFECTLY LEGAL hookah?"

I filled the glass tubes with steel wool (the website I found suggested copper brillo pads that would turn a silver-grey color when heated) and used a lighter to burn the end of the tube. 

 It turned out pretty well (maybe a bit too much steel wool after looking for more 

research images). But totally believable in the moment.