So one of my New Years resolutions was to be better about this discussion.
So, a new topic emerges...
I'm looking for anecdotes about productions that have really blurred the edges between design disciplines as we know them- or as we are taught.
I'm as guilty as the next (wo)man of saying in a production meeting, "That's props!" or secretly plotting that a bad decision will be fixed with lighting... but is that spirit collaborative? What is the line between passing the buck and sharing the love?
What do you think people? Tell me your story...
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3 comments:
I have worked at a number of places where we have taken into consideration the areas of expertise of particular staff in terms of labor distribution--for example, the crossover of skills between props and costume crafts artisans.
For a recent production, i made a number of parasols (though i am the crafts artisan and those are technically props) because parasol construction is an area of expertise for me. In the same production, we built a macropuppet (a la Taymor) for which our scenic crew welded the mainframe structure--i'm not certified to weld but it needed to be steel--and my assistant sculpted the constituent parts.
I suppose from a design perspective it's a case of, does the object matter to you as a costume designer (i.e., parasols and fans being frequently required to work with the costume aesthetically), and if so, who can actually make what you want at the highest quality standard?
This is a cool blog, BTW.
Thanks for the post- I'm actually currently fording the props stream for the first time at the university where I'm teaching costume design because the poor scenic/lighting/sound/catering/company management/animal control/ psychiatric care professor (everybody knows THIS person in their own theatre- it may even be YOU!) is obviously swamped.
I'm dealing with the fear by having kids clean out the props closet until I can come up with a battle plan.
My theatre ( a children's theatre where we do a number of original productions ) recently did a puppetry version of the Ugly Duckling, including body puppets, rod puppets, etc. The props department and costumes (which I head) blurred our lines as never before. This made sence because 1. Oh my god there's so much work how are we ever going to get it done and 2. these puppets don't really hold props, so time was cleared up for props to help me.
On the other hand, the show we opened up last weekend was what I call "the modern dance Hercules" which, with 12 labors including a multi-headed hydra, man eating lions, and 2 headed dogs, by necessity included a lot of "prop puppets" and macropuppets, as well as masks. We were going in more of a dance prop direction inspired by 60's Martha Graham images, but we can't get too abstract when making theatre for young folks. However, it was also a fully "costumed" show, and I had to push my shop to the limit to get it done. I took on the lion skins, for the Nemian and Cithaeronian Lion that would truly be worn and needed expertise in patterning and wearablility, but much of the puppetry was left to props. I wish I could have done more in that area as I found the puppetry of Ugly Duckling to be very interesting to work on. Collaboration did start to fall apart as stress set in, and my shop has to say "no I can't help you with that" only because we have to do our part first.
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