What is the craziest thing you ever had to make?
Printed From: Community Theater Green Room
Category: Producing Theater
Forum Name: Props, Scenery, Costumes and Makeup
Forum Discription: For how-to's and where-can-I-find
URL: http://www.communitytheater.org/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=4954
Printed Date: 5/12/25 at 8:38pm
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Topic: What is the craziest thing you ever had to make?
Posted By: peacock
Subject: What is the craziest thing you ever had to make?
Date Posted: 2/04/11 at 1:25pm
I had the day off today, so I made a portable cone of silence out of disposable salad bowls, a bioscanner to check your identity from a palm print, ninja stars from old CD's, and a dress based on a Mondrian painting. We are doing Get Smart.
What is the craziest thing you ever had to build, sew, create or steal for a show?
Props and scenery people, you should have some funny stories.
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Replies:
Posted By: SpenceKenzer
Date Posted: 2/04/11 at 1:44pm
FIRST, where can I get a copy of your Get Smart stage play?
SECOND, I directed the play Unity: 1918 by Kevin Kerr, which calls for a full-size polished wooden dildo. Our props maker couldn't stop giggling.
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Saludos, my dahlinks, and you know who you are ... !
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Posted By: Tallsor
Date Posted: 2/04/11 at 2:52pm
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Dare I mention it: the production of "The Full Monty" i was stage managing a few years ago was worried about potential 'full exposure' even with the lights from behind, and so we looked into possibly making a homemade version of what porn movies call 'cock socks'. Thankfully, we ended up being able to buy them - as I wasn't even sure I wanted to have to measure for them.
And yes - my husband made an extremely large dildo to look like a bee for Christopher Durang's "The Hardy Boys and the Mystery of Where Babies Come From", where the dad is explaining the birds and the bees to the two boys.
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Posted By: Amos Hart
Date Posted: 2/04/11 at 3:38pm
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Get Smart stage script:
http://www.dramaticpublishing.com/p554/Get-Smart/product_info.html - http://www.dramaticpublishing.com/p554/Get-Smart/product_info.html
It's based on the pilot script by Mel Brooks & Buck Henry.
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Posted By: didj1028
Date Posted: 2/04/11 at 8:27pm
I had to make a taxidermy warthog head for Inspector Drake and the Perfect Crime. That was a fun little challenge. Another crazy/fun project was giant puppets for The BFG. never had to make a giant dildo though...
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Geoff Ehrendreich
Waterloo Community Playhouse
Waterloo IA
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Posted By: bmiller025
Date Posted: 2/05/11 at 7:57pm
When I was in college, I helped to make a six-foot long phallus out of foam, that was covered in gold lamé fabric, for a production of Peter Barnes' "The Bewitched." It had handles on the sides! A very bizarre play, and an even more bizarre production!
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http://www.brianmiller.biz/BrianDesign.htm
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Posted By: peacock
Date Posted: 2/05/11 at 9:19pm
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This conversation has gone in a very Freudian direction. How about something ELSE that you had to create for a play!
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Posted By: Spectrum
Date Posted: 2/06/11 at 3:52am
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Well, besides the Audrey II puppets for LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS (what a nightmare THAT was - the smallest puppet even had an articulating tongue), I have made an answering machine with lots of ‘special effects’ and a shape to accommodate the full head mask for THE NERD (with the mask on the answering machine, the eyes glowed in unison with the audio coming from the machine), a kite and rigging to have the kite swoop up exactly on cue, and then free fall on cue inside the theatre for the musical YOU’RE A GOOD MAN, CHARLIE BROWN!, 'electronically controlled' train wheels that gave the illusion of turning to the rhythm of the song in THE MUSIC MAN, a wall on a set that had a human head and hands emerge from it for THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE, and a mantle that silently 'swallowed' the Indian figurines by remote control for Agatha Christie’s TEN LITTLE INDIANS (that was the title back then). That was a favorite of mine. Using misdirection and clever staging, the audience could never figure out how the figurines disappeared so quickly after a murder. Isn't theatre FUN?
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Growing old is mandatory. Growing up is optional.
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Posted By: TonyDi
Date Posted: 2/07/11 at 7:18am
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Couple of things I recall - was first in the play SEASCAPE by Edward Albee - I built the sea creature/lizard costumes complete with three fingered hands with claws and the 4 toed feet with claws and the pad-like undersides like those little creatures have. They both had like 6' long tails that they fought that came right off their bodies from their chest down through the crotch and so forth just like lizards with all the padding and "sectioning" of lizard like creatures.
The other thing was the gag for MISERY - where in the stage script (unlike the film) she chops off his left leg below the knee with an axe. We had an old hospital bed and we rigged the bed so his actual leg could be under the matress, we protected his real knee and lower leg so she could really take a whack at it (with the fiberglass axe I made to look realistic) and then she chops off his leg with blood spurting everywhere rigged with tubes and big syringes. The leg was a purchased Halloween item but it was a good one - though it still needed to be repainted and haired, etc. to look more realistic onstage with lighting. But it was very effective and looked good when he lost his leg. Then the wheel chair he moved around stage in for a while was rigged so his leg could be under him and a false leg stump would show. What a fun show that was - but took a while to create all that stuff.
Fun times.
TonyDi
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"Almost famous"
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Posted By: sguti39
Date Posted: 3/29/11 at 2:43pm
We did a musical called Santa's Toy Camp where one of the lead characters was a frilly princess doll in the beginning and throughout the play removed the frills and lace to reveal a full fledged ragged ann doll. Think of the island of misfit toys. Key part was that this dress had to do from over the stop princessy to simple rag doll each show. I made a simple baby blue satin A line dress and attached layers and layers of basted white chiffon with babay blue hearts via velcro. These not only comprised, the sash, the collar, the sleeves, but also the entire dress below the knees. After dis-assembling the dress throughout the entire show, the girl stood on stage with her red striped stockings, her simple blue satin A line dress and chiffon bow in her hair. It was at that point that santa explained to her that her true mission in life was not to be a princess doll, but a rag doll and handed her an apron. The best compliment we received was that none of the people in attendance saw the subtle transformation until the end.
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S.G.
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Posted By: Theatermama
Date Posted: 3/29/11 at 5:13pm
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I turned 4 kids into pop cans this summer, made a train costume for a grown man to wear, had to create a "wound" with glass and blood coming out that actor applied during intermission, planet costumes, various birds, and chicken poop suits from a play about a chicken factory where they killed chickens.
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Posted By: MusicManD
Date Posted: 5/17/11 at 7:16pm
Well, I've only been on the production side for a short time. To this point, my only "weird" contraption was an old vacuum cleaner that would explode on cue and then be puppeted later in the act. We also had to make a functional Humpty Dumpty costume. That was fun.
However, on the acting side, I've been in productions that involved a rotating mountain (The Jungle Book), an electric powered raft that rolled around the auditorium (Big River), a 200 foot snake puppet (The Jungle Book), moving trains, rising elevators, all sorts of flown apparatuses, and we had a variety of cool spring-loaded hidden arrows in tables and walls for Robin Hood.
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Posted By: MonsterSet
Date Posted: 6/10/11 at 9:46pm
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Well I don’t know if it was crazy, but was fun.
For “Joseph and his Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” I build a full size replica of the 1969 VW Woodstock Van out of wood and put a golf cart inside to drive across the stage. Joseph was taken to Egypt by hippies.
And last month for “Gypsy”, I built a full size replica of a 1928 Rolls Royce Phantom II convertible that stretched from 10ft to 14ft, while crossing the stage.
I guess the crazy part was that neither was onstage for more than 2 minutes.
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Thank you...
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Posted By: GElliott
Date Posted: 9/24/11 at 9:14am
We produced the production "Some Things You Need To Know Before The World Ends. A Final Evening With The Illuminati". It calls for a LOT of props, but my favorite was the self flagellation bike. When ridden a wheel spins and slaps the rider. Extremely fun to make and it was hard to keep the audience off of it after each show.
Here's some pics of the show: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.408217593506.185673.130171553506
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