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 :)

Fake Indian Lunch

In Disconnect  one of the characters is eating lunch at his desk. We decided that the lunch should be contained in a tiffin, a small stacking tin that many Indians use to pack lunches.

 In the top section, I added a few pieces of flatbread so that he could take a few bites at the beginning of the scene.

In the bottom half I created a "chickpea" dish with wooden beads and a few chopped up pieces of fake greenery, all coated in elmers glue to hold it together. Up close you can see the holes in the beads, but from the distance onstage they weren't visible.

Also, in a funny shopping twist, I called five different local Indian import and supply stores looking for this at the last minute (initially we had decided he would be eating a sandwich) in an attempt to avoid shipping costs and time delays, none of them had anything or could even recommend somewhere else that might. 

After giving up on the local route, I went online to search and discovered World Market sells this one for $10, and stocks them in store. 

Resealable bag

For Disconnect" at Victory Gardens, I needed a cheap disposible bag of party whistles to be easily resealable.

 To do this I used the original bag and cardboard header from the whistles, a bit of magnet and some metal plumber's strap.

I glued the plumbers strap inside the cardboard, and then the bag on top of that. The magnet glued to the other side is strong enough to hold the cardboard closed through the two thin layers of plastic bag.
As a bonus, this rig added some weight to the bag, which helped the actors to toss it across the stage like they needed to.

Stage Cacti

In the past I have had trouble when a cactus has come up as a prop needed onstage. I once gave up and bought a real live aloe vera plant, which the stage manager had to be responsible for caring for over the run of the show. 

 During my work on this show though I realized that small fake cacti are actually very easy to purchase, I was just looking in the wrong place.

You won't find cacti in the craft stores where I buy most of the rest of my fake greenery, but you will find a large selection of very inpressive fake cacti at pet stores. They are sold for people to put in terrariums with pet lizards and snakes and such. 

 I love awesome discoveries like this. 

And will certainly be using more in the future. 

For this particular prop I had another interesting challenge after finding the cacti. 

There is a bit in the show where one character is over watering the cacti on his desk and killing them. He needed to be able to put a full cup of water into the dish holding the cacti without it overflowing. 

To help with this, I used a sponge to create the sandy soil that the cacti were planted in. 

 With scissors and a matte knife I carved out the sponge to fit the tin I was using for a planter, and to fit around the base of the cactus plant. 

Because of the precise fit (just slightly larger than the tin so it would squish in and hold) neither the sponge or the plant needed to be glued in. This makes it easy for the run crew to take out the sponge, and squeeze it to remove the water between scenes, allowing the actor to continue pouring more water in without a risk of overflowing. 

Why the details matter

First off, my apologies, there won't be many process posts from this show. The rule of three came into effect hardcore on this show, though not in the way it usually does. This time I had a month from contract offer to opening night to put together a giant show set in an accurate, detailed home on the south side of Chicago. We did not have time, and with a picky (and famous) director, could not sacrifice quality. We did, however, have money. So I just shopped (and shopped and shopped and shopped).
Over the course of this show, while speaking to my mom, she was constantly surprised to learn how much money I was spending on little details. The characters would be speaking on I-phones, the I-phones should have protective cases. The books on the bookshelf should have titles that we would believe would be in this home, at least on the lowest few shelves where audience members would be able to read them from the front rows. All of the cabinets in the kitchen have glass fronts, which means they all need to be filled with dishes. The refrigerator needs to be full of food, including salad dressings and condiments in the door. Every time I tell my mom about details like this, especially the frustrating, difficult to find, or expensive, she sighs and asks me if anyone will really notice. "No one will leave the theatre thinking, 'it would have been a good show, except that the photographer character would never have been using that camera.'" she tells me, and I sigh, because while that is true, it's not the point.
I am well aware that if I get one or two details wrong, most people won't notice, and it won't ruin the play for the people who do notice. But, if a missing detail is obvious enough, it will take certain members of the audience out of the experience of the play for a few seconds. If you stop being lost in the play long enough to think "If she just flew in from Belgium, why are there no checked bag stickers on her suitcases, they can't have all been carry-ons" it may take you 30 seconds more to get sucked back into the story. If that moment of distraction happens during a touching moment or an important line, or the punchline of a joke, then you're missing even more. I know that the details, when they are right, don't always make the show. Often when the details are right you don't notice them at all; but I also know that when the details are wrong, you do notice. My goal is for you, as an audience member to be lost on the show, to add the details that make the world feel real without anyone noticing, to provide pieces that facilitate the action of the actors effortlessly, so that the actors are free to tell you the story that the playwright and director wanted to share.