The spaniel’s name, by the way, is Lady. I use quarter inch “crap” foam to put muscle on her skull. We call it crap foam to distinguish it from reticulated foam, which is strong and durable. Crap foam tears easily, oxidizes quickly, but is very lightweight and cheap. It’s also fairly stretchy. Lady doesn’t need […]
Muscle and skin for the spaniel Read More »
First of all, you should know that I did not pick up the shotguns today. There’s some additional paperwork that I needed, so hopefully that will be taken care of tomorrow. Meanwhile, here’s some of the dog activity. I’m actually farther along than this but I forgot to take pictures. What you are looking at
More fun with spaniels Read More »
Well this should be fun. The show that I’m working on now needs two rifles. So, I contacted the company that I’ve used before, because they are helpful and smart. I like that when dealing with firearms, even blank-firing ones. I haven’t had to acquire “long-arms” before and have discovered that they are completely different
The show that used the moose head ended today and Rob handled the process of picking the props up from the theater for me. He just sent me this email about moving the moose. It’s in our hall now but we had to walk it up the stairs. Comically, we managed to coax it into
Elizabeth Barrette asked, “How did you get into your cool practice of acquiring bizarre props and building puppets?” This is one that comes up a lot and, strangely, I don’t think I’ve posted on it, so I’ll give the long answer. I was one of those kids who wanted to do everything. My parents indulged
How I got started in puppetry Read More »
Dear actors, When you demand a prop, a strange and difficult to acquire prop, which requires some hours of time to get for you, please think carefully when presented with the object before you announce that you prefer what you’ve been using in rehearsal. Many thanks for your time and attention. A prop master who
Note to actors from a prop master Read More »
One of the joys, when I’m doing props, comes from creating paper goods. Letters, diaries and in this case, a 40-page poetry manuscript…. I took the text of the scene, fed it into the Bonsai Story Generator and got titles from the Book Title Generator. That gave me about ten pages, which I fed back
Generating a poetry manuscript for a prop Read More »
So… let’s recap today. Pilot overslept. Then thunderstorms. Still no pilot. Plane delayed by two hours. Miss D.C. connection. Rebooked on a flight for 6:15 am the next day. Sad. Get standby flight. Happy! Flight is delayed. Why? LaGuardia wasn’t letting flights in. Sad. Finally arrive in NYC. All buses are running! Happy! All buses
A mere thirteen hours later Read More »
We thought we had the the system solved to deliver the donut “magically” to the middle of the stage. Alas, using a foam bunny as our test subject ((before carving it into a donut)) we discovered that the foam caught on even the tiniest bit of friction. When the friction released, the bunny shot into
Bunny delivery system Read More »
For Steve and Idi I need a fake jelly donut. I started with blue foam, the stuff used to insulate your house, and laminated two sheets of 1″ foam together to get the right thickness for the donut. Then I cut it out on the bandsaw. My beltsander and I rounded the thing. I used
Time to make the donuts Read More »
My shopping list this week included: Taxidermy moose head, KY Jelly, 2 lbs feathers, balloons, fishing line Glock or revolver, and a mousetrap. I actually said the sentence, “As soon as I buy the moose head, I have to go pick up some KY jelly.” What’s the strangest combination of things you’ve ever bought?
Shopping for my job Read More »
Fired a gun for the first time today. It was a blank-firing Glock with quarter-charge ammunition and was for Steve and Idi at Rattlestick. Even with only a quarter-charge of gunpowder, it was really loud. Alas, the Glock throws the spent casings in a twenty-foot arc, which lands them squarely in the audience. I’m taking
Dropped props off for one show. Bought furniture for another. Rehearsed a third. Wrote on the train. Bed now.
Quick recap of today Read More »
If you want to have conversations with your neighbors, a good way to do it is to walk down the street with a cart of taxidermy. They might start conversations with such openers as” “My god!” “What is it?” “Are they real?” “May I touch your dead animal heads?” I’m doing props for Bully Pulpit,
Walking in NYC with taxidermy Read More »
I spent today getting props together for Steve and Idi a new play that I’m working on for Rattlestick theater. In the afternoon, Rob and I went down to pick up a rug for the Bully Pulpit, a play about Teddy Roosevelt. In the evening, Katherine and I headed down to the Peter and the
Steve & Idi, Teddy, Peter and Katherine Read More »