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[book reviews]The Properties Director’s Handbook Managing a Prop Shop for Theatre

By Sandy Strawn

Reviewed by Kelly Wiegant Mangan

The Tudor Child: Clothing and Culture 1485-1625By Jane Huggett and Ninya Mikhaila

Reviewed by Judy Adamson

Scene Design and Stage Lighting, Tenth EditionBy R. Craig Wolf and Dick Block

Reviewed by Arden Weaver

Published in TD&T, Vol. 49 No.4 (Fall 2013)

Theatre Design & Technology, the journal for design and production professionals in the performing arts and entertainment industry, is published four times a year by United States Institute for Theatre Technology. For information about joining USITT or to purchase back issues of TD&T, please contact the USITT office:

USITT315 South Crouse Avenue, Suite 200Syracuse, NY 13210tel: 800-93-USITT (800-938-7488)tel: 315-463-6463fax: 315-463-6525e-mail: [email protected]: www.usitt.org

Copyright 2013 United States Institute for Theatre Technology, Inc.


reviewbook

editorarnold wengrow

The Properties Director’s HandbookManaging a Prop Shop for Theatre

By Sandy Strawn; New York, Focal Press, 2013. 148pp. Paper, $19.95.

Reviewed by Kelly Wiegant Mangan

In 1864 in London, Tom Robertson, the Victorian playwright and journalist, wrote a series of humorous articles about the-atrical types for The Illustrated Times in which he called the property man a “mysterious mechanic” and a “gifted getter-up of gnomes, salamanders, drag-ons’ heads, and fairies’ wings.” Over the past twenty-some years I’ve been work-ing in theatre, these wonderfully strange, collaborative, and creative prop people were, for the most part, either a prod-uct of their own curiosities or they were strays from the disciplines of design and stagecraft. Few universities had programs specializing in prop construction and management, and very little was written

to directly support this element of production. Even Thurston James’s The Theatre Props Handbook, published in 1987, in-cluded only a small preface of what it was like to actually be a prop master. His classic and essential books focused more on the props themselves than the actual job. Sandy Strawn’s newly published The Properties Director’s Handbook: Managing a Prop Shop for Theatre has filled a need beyond the list of skills needed to make a prop and created a resource to help students and professionals alike actually run a successful prop shop.

Sandy Strawn is currently the head of technical production at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee, where she teaches the properties courses in the professional theatre training pro-gram. She has been working in theatre for over two decades, building, painting, and designing stage properties and scenery. The information she has included in this book comes from a culmination of this extensive production experience. Her work with professional companies—Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville, and Utah Shakespeare Festival, just to name a few—has given her extra insight into the operation of a successful prop shop. Her expertise was acknowledged in 2006 when she was asked to serve as contributing editor on the update of the prop chapter for J. Michael Gillette’s Theatrical Design and Production.

Still, one chapter could not fully explain the complexities

of running a prop shop, so in 2008, she wrote and published her website, the Properties Directors Handbook: Props for the Theatre (http://prophandbook.com/HOME.html). Conceived through conversations with the members of S.P.A.M ., the Soci-ety of Prop Artisan Managers, Strawn created the site primarily to pass along information to the new membership; however. it quickly became an important tool for educators as well as for other professionals.

In November of 2012, Focal Press released The Properties Director’s Handbook: Managing a Prop Shop for Theatre. A condensation and reworking of the information in the website, this book explains the process of props for theatre from the script to strike. Now students who complain they don’t have access to the website can have a textbook. And now, the book lover in me can have a copy for my shelf.

Building from the basics

Organizationally, this book is a dream. Strawn starts with the basics and builds from there. In actuality, the hardest ques-tion is posed first, “What is a prop?” The answer, like the rest of the information in the book, is presented with a comfort-able, easy-to-understand, conversational tone. Strawn breaks down the traditional definition and adds to it the nuances of how props are viewed by different theatres and different edu-cational venues. She starts right off the bat getting the reader used to the fact that in props, there is never just one answer to the question.

In this book’s nine chapters, Strawn makes a deliberate point of describing the operation of a successful prop shop as collaborative, flexible, and above all, the place where the question “what if?” should be asked. In her second chapter, she helps to clarify the actual job description of a prop mas-ter and points out clearly the changing differences in title (prop director, prop manager, prop designer) and how those changes are reflected in the structure of theatre production. It is much more common that the prop director is now on the same organizational level as the technical director. That change brings with it a wider scope of responsibility. Often props are in charge of their own spaces, budgets, and labor, deliberately separate from the scene shop. Strawn has taken the time to not only show the budding prop master where to even begin in this structure, but she also helps to support the seasoned prop manager with creative solutions for the efficient use of resources.

As I said before, this book focuses not as much on “how to make props” as on “how to do the job.” Strawn does include an extremely comprehensive list of skills that a prop master should have, but she also lists skills that go beyond physical labor and talent. She lists sensibilities. To her, it is essential that communication with the production team, setting high stan-dards for the shop itself, and adjusting to the changing needs

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of the production are equally important. She even gets down to the nitty gritty about what training a prop master needs, how to find a job, and what salary can be expected in this line of work.

The bulk of the book supports the pro-duction process, step by step. Strawn empha-sizes that all prop work starts with the script, guiding the reader through gleaning a prop list from standard script analysis techniques. She prompts the reader with questions to guide es-sential research, speaking directly to Internet resources but emphasizing the importance of museums, living histories, and library research as well. From there, it’s all about how to get it done. Strawn has included tips on organizing lists, creating inventories and prop tracking systems, assigning shop tasks, and following up on the status of items. For all of this, she has included actual paperwork and photo examples from several professional prop shops across the country. She frankly and succinctly describes the tech rehearsal process and the prop master’s role in it, from helping stage management and prop crews to establish running procedures, to taking and responding to designer notes, or possibly helping an actor with the correct and safe usage of a specific prop.

The last chapter in the book is devoted to the organization of the prop shop space. Again, Strawn provides supporting photographs from shops across the country. She details the tools needed, the ventilation systems, and the types of spaces needed to do all of the extraordi-narily different tasks defined by the simple word “prop.” In addition, her ongoing website contains even more detailed information about shop safety, dust collection, and other manage-ment issues.

In essence, this book is so wonderfully logical to me because I have been doing all of these same things for so many years, yet I have never been able to actually describe what a prop master does in such a simple way. This book, and its companion website, has met its goal. The information has been passed along, and we have been reminded of the strength of our collaborative field. Strawn sums it up when she includes, in a little box hidden at the end of chapter 8, “Each show opens the mind to a different time, different characters, new

solutions, old problems, and always a chance to discover the ‘what if….?’”

Kelly Wiegant Mangan is a member of the design/tech faculty at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. Her professional career has spanned work as a properties master at the Utah Shakespearean Festival, Shakespeare Santa Cruz, and Stage One,

the Louisville Children’s Theatre, where she also served as resident scenic designer. She continues to actively work in props and scenic design at BGSU, where she teaches scenic construction and props, stage management, scenic art, and drafting. Kelly is a member of S.P.A.M ., the Society of Properties Artisan Managers.


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reviewbook

By Jane Huggett and Ninya Mikhaila, edited by Jane Malcom-Davis. Lightwater [UK], Fat Goose Press; Hollywood, CA, Quite Specific Media Group, 2013. 160 pp. Paper, $59.95.

Reviewed by Judy Adamson

Many scholars, costume designers, and costume makers are familiar with other books by the team producing The Tudor Child. The layout and wealth of information in this volume follows the format of the previously published The Tudor Tailor, The King’s Servants, and The Queen’s Servants. These sources are invaluable to anyone searching for information about clothing of the late fifteenth century to the Jacobean era. The Tudor Child is a logical extension of their body of work.

The study of costume is not just about clothes; it is about social context. The Tudor Child is both a remarkable piece of research and a practical guide for construction of clothing for infants, small children, and youths. As Alison Weir, the author of popular Tudor biographies, says in her foreword, “It is a feast of fascinating information and wonderful pictures, a stunning com-bination of original research and practical application.”

Dress was an obvious indicator of class and status in the sixteenth century. Children were a reflection of their parents’ economic and social status. The research uses primary sources found in portraits, sculpture, documents such as wills and in-ventories, and archaeological examination of extant garments. Over 1,000 images were studied and charted, showing the per-centages of age and sex. For example the authors studied 168 images of toddlers, 103 of which were boys (61 percent), 63 were girls (38 percent), and two were of undetermined sex (1 percent). The information is biased toward the affluent, but the working classes are also represented.

Babies, Boys, and Girls

Chapter 1, The Subject and the Sources, describes how the au-thors gathered their information. Chapter 2, Infants, Babies and Toddlers, focuses on newborns to three-year-olds and discuss-es garments from swaddling cloths to coats and gowns. Some of the terms will be familiar, others perhaps less so, for example, biggin for coif and the chrisom cloth laid on a child’s head at baptism . Chapter 3, Small Boys and Youths, and Chapter 4, Small Girls and Youths, deal specifically with the types of gar-ments worn from the ages four to twelve. Girls remained in the female domain until they left the home for marriage; boys, how-ever, were removed from the care of women and moved into the

world of men at an earlier age.Now the labels become more recognizable, for instance,

in the case of boys, slops, jerkins, and round hose. As girls grew older more underpinnings were in evidence. The differences between the privileged and ordinary women are more obvious. The chapters are richly illustrated from primary sources, and footnotes are provided to direct the scholar to the source of information.

Chapter 5, Fabrics and the Colors, provides a chart of the sixteenth century name of predominant fabrics, their use, and contemporary evidence from research. The fabrics were lim-ited to woolens, linen, and silk. It took more labor to make fabric than to make clothes, so a tailor could unpick a garment more readily to fashion a new garment rather than purchasing new fabric. Evidence of this practice can be found in bequests and household accounts.

The research portion of the book is slightly less than half of the total. Chapter 6, Constructing the Garments, represents the rest. While the authors recognize that “what exists today is a haphazard mixture of unrelated items that have made it through the centuries because of preservation or chance sur-vival,” they do an excellent job of providing practical knowl-edge and scaled patterns of the garments mentioned in the earlier chapters. Jane Huggett and Ninya Mikhaila have been reconstructing historic dress for museums and historical sites in England for many years. They are joined in the last section by Michael Perry, who has provided the line drawing illustrations, and Adam Shaw and Henrietta Clare, who photographed the re-constructed clothing on the cutest models you have ever seen!

Useful techniques

The last chapter provides helpful information on selecting materi-als, surface decoration, and useful construction techniques such as pleating and gathering, making buttons and buttonholes, and working with leather and fur. Section 1 covers maternity wear and dressing the newborn in a clout, shirt, bed, forehead cloth, biggin, and swaddling bands. Instructions and patterns are pro-vided for childbed linen for an infant up to three months. There are also knitting instructions for a swaddling waistcoat (three to six months) and an infant’s knitted petticoat.

Section 2, Underwear, covers the shirt and smock, bacon bodies (a boned bodice), and Spanish and French farthingales. Each pattern is accompanied by a photo and/or a line draw-ing, information on recommended materials, and construc-tion notes. The patterns are in 1/8th scale with each square equaling 1 inch. They are very precise and clearly notated, and source information has been included.

Section 3, Basic Garments, begins with information on adapting the basic bodice and doublet patterns and fitting a

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toile. Patterns are given for the basic doublet, bodice and sleeve for a child (aged two to six), basic girl’s bodice, boy’s doublet, and uni-sex sleeves for a child (aged eight to twelve), and basic skirts. In Section 4, Ordinary Boys and Girls, basic patterns for doublets, jerkins, jackets, and coats are included for the Brue-gel boy, aged six, and breeches and coat from an unknown artist in Netherlands to fit a child aged ten. There is also a Bruegel girl’s kirtle and child’s gown for a four-year-old and an Ipswich schoolgirl’s petticoat and waistcoat for a child aged twelve.

Section 5, Elite Children, provides a pat-tern for a girl’s kirtle and gown (six years old), Princess Elizabeth’s petticoat, kirtle, foresleeves, and gown (ten years old), and a kirtle and gown (ten years old). There is also a pattern for Prince Edward’s jacket, hose, and gown (ten years old). The section also includes patterns for a petticoat and coat for an eight-month-old, a boy’s doublet and petticoat for a two-year-old, and Mary Feilding’s bodices, petticoat, and gown for a child of six.

The patterns for Princess Elizabeth and Prince Edward are the most adult-like, and even though the patterns are for children ten years old, I believe a patternmaker could use a pro-portional scale to size them to fit a mature body. The detailed construction notes would be appli-cable for any costume maker.

Section 6, Accessories, covers aprons and bibs, ruffs, cuffs and collars, caps and coifs, stock-ings, mittens, and shoes, all with excellent photo-graphs, line drawings, instructions, and patterns.

Like the books of Jean Hunnisett, known for her works on historical costume for film and theatre, the Tudor series is an excellent source of information that is accessible to the novice and rich in detail for the expert.

Judy Adamson is Professor of the Practice and head of the graduate program in costume production at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She serves as costume director for PlayMakers Repertory Company and has draped at the Utah Shakespeare Festival for twelve seasons.


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reviewbook

By R. Craig Wolf and Dick Block; Boston, Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2013. 645 pp. Cloth, $197.00.

Reviewed by Arden Weaver

Theatre is a collaborative art form, and R. Craig Wolf and Dick Block have embraced this same form of collaboration in the creation of their new edition of Scene Design and Stage Light-ing. They have brought together a broad list of artists working in today’s theatre to speak to us as designers and students alike. And their collaboration extends from current theatrical practic-es to historical perspectives, from the very first editions of Oren Parker and Harvey Smith’s classic text first published in 1963.

Many of us still teaching in this profession remember those early classroom days, when we were being taught the art and craft of theatre. I’m willing to wager most of us have one or two early additions of Parker and Smith still on our book-shelves. I am certainly one of those teachers who used Parker and Smith religiously for years. I never had an opportunity to meet Harvey Smith, but I did meet Oren Parker on several oc-casions at USITT conferences and when he accepted our invita-

tion to judge the Undergraduate Scene Design Competition at Wichita State University.

During this visit I learned the importance Professor Parker placed on the education of undergraduate students. It was indeed fitting of USITT to create the W. Oren Parker Scene Design Award in 2001, given annually to a student pursuing an undergraduate degree. I am pleased to see that Dick Block at

Carnegie Mellon and Craig Wolf at San Diego State have retained that enthusiasm for teaching under-graduates. They have carried on the Parker and Smith tradition with great respect and are now cre-ating, with a great sense of adventure, a new begin-ning with this tenth edition.

Full color

This new text boasts new chapters, detailed photos, and interviews, and it incorporates the most expres-sive design element: color. Words, headings, and important ideas jump from the page in full color, emphasizing key concepts. The interactive approach of these colored pages relates to the new technolo-gies provided us via the Internet. The authors say in their preface, “Students can find additional ma-terials on the book’s companion website. . . . These useful resources include chapter-specific quizzes, relevant Web links, and larger versions of several images from the text (allowing closer study).” It will be interesting to see how they will keep pace with the information immediacy of the World Wide Web in months and years to come.

The Designers at Work and Working Profes-sionals sections are hallmarks of the text. These in-terviews with current professionals were developed during the last edition, but a new crop of artists was added for this edition. I encourage the authors to

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keep this list of experts growing for future volumes. One can only imagine the potential stories, perhaps from the next gen-eration of theatre artists, that could be added on the Internet or for that matter with future editions of the book.

Two new chapters have been prominently placed in the center of the book, one on automation of scenery and light, and the other on projections. These chapters bring an introduction to these newly recognized areas of design. Gone is the myth of creating less expensive scene designs with the use of projections. Projected scenery has been around for a long time; all one needs to do is hear about the work of Eddie Kook and Jo Mielziner to understand the complexities of pro-jections and what they require to be successful. An entire text could be elaborated from this chapter on projections. Our authors understand this, and they gave us a brief but structured introduction to projec-tions with an enthusiastic approach to this now rec-ognized theatre design genre.

There are new additions in the scene design chapter. Particular attention should be given to design composition, with all new color examples. Abstract illustrations of visual compositions are compared to sample design photos. The design process is illustrated with all new layouts and im-ages. Nearly all the examples of drafting are new in this edition. I particularly want to note how com-puter drafting and hand drawing are presented as equal communication tools. They do not emphasize one drafting style over the other. Each style of draft-ing, whether from a machine or from the hand, has its place in our industry.

New technologies, new standards

Stage Lighting chapters have been updated with new technologies of today and tomorrow. Gone are illus-trations of Lekos and resistance dimmers. We have previous Parker and Smith texts for historical refer-ence. This new technology, cool temp light sources, was the same light that Frederick Bentham, one of the British pioneers of lighting technology and control, introduced at a University of Texas, Austin, workshop, almost thirty-five years ago. He predict-ed we would be using this technology someday, and it is now explained in detail here. Thank you for the explanation of LED lighting.

This text sets new standards for classroom in-struction. From information on the page to interac-tive presentations on the Internet, new technologies will provide teachers of designers new strategies. One idea that may become financially appealing to teachers and students alike is the ability to purchase this text as an electronic book. Individual lecture

materials will also be available chapter by chapter. Teachers will be able to require particular chapters from this text for their students. We will see it in the classroom, design labs, and scene shops, in book form or electronic tablet. The authors have built on the past by giving us a glimpse into the future of teaching theatrical design.

Arden Weaver is scenic designer for the Department of Theatre and associate dean of the School of Fine Arts at the University of Minnesota, Duluth.


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