Quick-Rig Drapes

The beginning of Invasion at Silk Road Rising is supposed to look like an Arabian Nights Arab cliche. We're talking draped colorful fabric, palm trees, and maybe lush fringed cushions. We also needed everything to disappear quickly as the illusion is shattered. For palm trees and cushions that is easy. For draped fabric that needs to be re-rigged by the run crew each night before the show, and torn down during the show by "angry" actors, it was a bit of a puzzle. 

Our awesome and easy solution was this,

That picture, if you can't tell, is a standard wooden clothespin, pressed onto a sticky Command Strip. 

In case you somehow have never used these, they're amazing. I use the hooks all the time to add places backstage for actors to hang a prop or costume quickly. And they work exactly as advertised, pull down on the strip to stretch and remove and it leaves no residue. Be sure to check the label when you buy. Different strips are rated for different weights

The clothespins easily clip onto the ends of the fabric and hold them in place, but the hold is loose enough, that a slight tug down releases the fabric from the clothespins and allows it to be quickly removed and dragged offstage. 

We have had problems with some of the clothespins twisting and breaking (because the pins were cheaply made) but the rig is so easy to take down and redo, the best solution was just to give the run crew plenty of spare pins and command strips. If one breaks our ASM is easily able to replace it while rigging the fabric up the next night. 

As a side note, this beautiful fabric is actually Indian sari fabric, purchased at an Indian fabric store in the Devon neighborhood in Chicago. The woman at the store was incredibly helpful, but the pricing can be confusing. The sari fabrics are on rolls mostly, but the pricing is by sari. Each sari is roughly 6 yards long. The more you know...

Forte Piano

One of my biggest worries going into our production of Amadeus, was the forte piano. You simply can't do the show without it, it's the focal point of several scenes and needed to be beautiful. 

Our costume designer proposed a brilliant solution. As it turned out, one of the local universities was planning to do Amadeus this coming school year. She put me in touch with the set designer there and we decided to share the work. The University paid for the materials (about $200), and gave me their shop space to work in for the day. They also sent me a student assistant for a few hours to help. I did the research, shopping and building, and the set designer at the university did the painting. 

 The piano was built with a plywood base and lid. 1x12 framing, and bendy-board for the curved side. There is a 1 inch plywood curve, cut to match the curve of the base of the piano on the top edge of the bendy board which helps it hold it's shape. 

To create the keyboard I used a single piece of 1x12 and ran it through the radial arm saw at 3/4 inch increments. Each cut only went about half way across the width of the board, leaving everything attached on one edge. This allowed me to only worry about attaching one piece, and allowed me to keep even spacing along the keyboard. 

The black keys were cut from a piece of 1x which had been ripped on the table saw to the correct width I needed. The ends were curved down by briefly running them past the belt sander. 

 The legs of the piano were Oak railing pieces purchased at Menards and cut to length. They are attached with long lag screws going from the inside of the piano (attach these before the keyboard) down almost 5 inches into the leg. 

 I used an extra leg, hinged to the inside of the piano to hold the lid open when needed. 

 I ended up having to cut the lid twice. The first lid I made from immediately tracing the base, when I initially drew it, and cutting both at the same time. Unfortunately, since my carpentry was not perfect, and the sanding and smoothing of the curve after cutting each piece was not exact, the first lid didn't fit at all. I traced the top of the (almost) finished piano to create the second lid and the curves matched much better.

 And here is the finished piano onstage, finished and painted. 

 I was very proud of how it turned out. 

Nipples of Venus

For Amadeus, at Oak Park Festival Theatre, I created this tray of sweets for almost no cost. 

The script described nipples of Venus, as brandied chestnuts, dipped in sugar. 

A google image search gave me a lot of good information too (and surprisingly few pornographic pics considering the word nipple was part of my search)

They look something like this

I used my go-to salt dough recipe (one part salt, one part flour, add water VERY slowly until you reach the right consistency to mold what you need, bake on your ovens lowest temp until hard)

 a small dab of brown paint to each ball, and some extra ribbon and a silver sugar bowl made the tray look full and impressive. 

The grapes sitting on top of the tray were for the few pieces that were supposed to be consumable. From the distance of the audience, they were unnoticable, and they were easy for the actor to eat quickly and easily without gumming up her throat or being forced to chew something sticky before her next line. 

Golden Chairs

Let me start by saying that for Amadeus, at Oak Park Festival Theatre, we had just about zero budget. I had to be incredibly selective in how I spent my money because the script calls for many props very specifically. 

I was especially worried about furniture, after seeing nothing that could immediately pass for Rococo chairs in the limited stock, some plastic garden chairs caught my eye. 

 

There is no garden scene in the show, but I wondered if there would be a way to add an upholstered seat in order to make them feel like indoor dining chairs.

I found three chairs in total, two that looked like the green one above, and one that looked like this white one. After a coat of gold paint, they looked just flowery and over-the-top enough to pass as authentically Rococo. 

 By using a fender washer to hold a screw through one of the holes in the plastic seat, into a plywood circle I cut, I was able to attach upholstered seat cushions without damaging the chairs. 

 I think they turned out well, and they worked perfectly for the moment when Salieri talks about how he was able to buy lavish new furniture for his apartments. 

Never Be Afraid to Ask...Coke Cooler

For The Lake Effect at Silk Road Rising, the set designer wanted a standing Coke cooler in the corner of our set (a small family-owned Indian restaurant).
I was a bit worried about the idea, because our budget was fairly limited and I knew that purchasing one would be cost prohibitive. Also, a quick search on ebay and craigslist turned up only antique or vintage models.
Pretty quickly I realized that the only way we were going to get what we needed would be to go straight to the source. I called Coca-Cola.
I happened to have learned many years ago, when my grandfather was closing his old family pharmacy, that the big drink coolers found in restaurants and convenience stores do not belong to the stores themselves, but to the drink companies. Pepsi, Coke and other brands set up an account with the store owners, provide the coolers and then deliver the stock to fill it.
I found a service number on the Coca-Cola website, called and explained to the person who answered what I needed. I was sent to three or four different people, explaining our needs to each representative and then being forwarded on to the person who they believed could best help me. Eventually I spoke to Jose, who was able to figure out how to code the delivery for company records and arrange a time to deliver our machine. It arrived on schedule without any problems and immediately made the set look so much more like a real restaurant. All of this has been COMPLETELY FREE!
One of the most important parts of making something like this happen is good phone communication skills. With every person I spoke to I acknowledged that this was of course a strange request, and mentioned over and over again how much the help was appreciated. I stayed open and flexible in terms of what arrangements could work for us. I mentioned that we are a non-for-profit, and offered to provide any documentation that would be needed for tax records (they have not indicated that they needed anything at this point). I also made a point to tell them that the machine, and the logo would be clearly displayed to our audience every night. I had numbers on hand of audience sizes and numbers performances to back up my claim that this would be useful advertising for Coca-Cola.

 A couple side notes. After the rest of the set had been dulled down and dirtied to make it look more real and used, the bright clean colors of the coke cooler were overly distracting. The director asked if I could dull it down in any way. The solution I found to darken the color, without damaging the piece, was to gaff tape a layer of dark brown tulle over the entire side of the machine. The gaff tape should remove without leaving a residue, and the thin creases wrinkles in the fabric blend perfectly into the side of the machine from just a few steps away.

The only other problem we had with putting the machine onstage was the noise. The sound of the refrigerator motor, on our hollow set, in the marble floored theatre was just too much. The machine is rigged so that the lights and the refrigerator are run together on the same plug. 

Our lighting designer was able to solve the problem by installing long LED strips inside the machine and running them independently (this also allowed her to have more control over the lights and run them off the dimmer system). 

Quick Window Awning

I made this quick window awning for Living Large in a Mini Kind of Way at 16th Street Theatre. We had a limited budget, and needed to build the awning to fit the small window on the set, and wanted the sides to remain open to keep the awning feeling light and decorative (thus eliminating the easiest solution of building a hard structure and covering it with fabric. 

 I found these shelf brackets with closet rod hooks on ends at Menards. By turning them upside down I was able to get the perfect shape for my frame.

 Bonus- they are pre-drilled to screw directly into the set.

 I cut a small piece of PVC pipe to fit between the two brackets and screwed it into the closet rod hooks (also already pre-drilled for me).

Then all I needed to do was staple the fabric in on the top, and secure it along the bottom with some double stick carpet tape along the PVC.
The fabric of the awning was just standard muslin which the set designer painted. Because the fabric was stiffened so much by the paint, I was able to cut the curves into the end without needing to do any stitching or sealing to prevent fraying.

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. 

Potting fake plants

For Living Large in a Mini Kind of Way at 16th street theatre, we decided that in the last scene it be great for the two characters to be gardening while they talked. The director asked if I could provide supplies for the actors to fill three flower pots that could fit into the window box (which is filled with obviously fake flowers for the rest of the show).

 I started by purchasing the most natural looking small flowers I could find at Michaels. I found some pansies that looked right, and a stem of greenery that matched the leaves nicely. The pansies also made sense becuase they were one of the few fake flowers I could find that is actually sold in small flats of annuals at nurseries.
I cut small pieces of the flower stem and the greenery and pushed them into chunks of styrofoam.

Gethsemane nursery and garden center in Chicago was able to help me out by giving me some empty plastic containers that the annual flowers would come in, and a flat tray to hold them (they are my go-to location for anything having to do with plants or gardens in Chicago).

 I carved the foam away so that each piece fit nicely into the slots in the container.

 and then I painted them all with a coat of van dyke brown paint.

The result was very convincing and effective, and looked great as the actors placed them into real pots, and then used a small spade and their hands to fill in around them with real potting soil (which could be reused nightly).