My Right Foot---Day 25: Props and Costumes

There comes a time during every production where the subject of props and costumes can no longer be pushed aside. In independent productions, most actors supply their own costumes. And everyone pitches in on props. Garages are scoured. Basements looted. Emails are sent out to friends, family and acquaintances begging the question, “Does anyone out there happen to have an old wheelchair or know anyone who might have one?”

Due to just this scenario—I now own a wheelchair. I have no need for a wheelchair. But I made the mistake of writing one into a sketch. We needed it, and we got it. And now I have it. A wheelchair. Taking up much-needed closet space in my Manhattan studio apartment. But it’s hard to throw out a wheelchair. You never know when you’ll want to write one into a sketch again.

As a director, you tend to think that these little things “up your production value”. But really, they’re just a pain in the ass to lug around. No one’s looking at my YouTube sketch and thinking, “Wow. She got her hands on a wheelchair. She must be good!”

But actors LOVE props and costumes. Some even build intimate relationships with them. Ask if they can keep them after the run or the shoot. Even directors like to hang onto a few little bits.

These bits of props and costumes are buried all over my apartment. Under my bed, three whole suitcases are filled with various costume pieces. A pair of clown shoes. A Native American dress with feathers designed for Siamese Twins. A giant banana costume. And a full-length dress I wore in a high school production of Camelot.

Props are all over the place. A set of fake vintage radio microphones. A rubber chicken. A prop gun. Two white-tipped black vaudeville canes. And more silly hats than you could shake a prop stick at.

All of it absolutely worthless.

Sure, sometimes you come up with an idea and then you thank GOD you didn’t throw out that rubber chicken.

But mostly, it just takes up space.

All these things are now a part of what I like to call “My Shit”.

My Shit that I haul around with me from place to place. City to city. Apartment to apartment.

Don’t get me wrong. My apartment is FAR from junky. I tend to prefer clean lines mixed with a Bloomsbury touch. But none of this shit is going anywhere. Not anytime soon. It’s a curse.

Today I begin my VERY last-minute prop hunt. Luckily, I’ve been in New York long enough that I know where to go. And I’ve built enough disposable crap that I can problem-solve with the best of them.

On my way to work, I stop by a Midtown costume shop.

Nothing will jump-start the sketch-writing part of my brain as quickly as a visit to a theatrical shop. This one’s small, but I come out of there just crawling with ideas for the shows I’ll be writing this summer. For me, it’s like Red Bull for the Right Brain.

This afternoon, I collect empty liquor and wine bottle from work to fill with colored water and tea. I come up with a workable plan to redecorate a Kentucky Fried Chicken bucket to get rid of the logo. I gather a silver platter, ice bucket, funnel, and make a list of the prop food I’ll have to buy the morning of the shoot. I also stop at the liquor store to pick up three bottles of cheap prop wine. I decide on red wine with a twist top---not as easy as you would think to find at a decent price.

I make notes, design a slapdash tablescape, view more test footage, and try to figure out how I’m going to get it all from here to there.

It’s frenetic, and crazy. Lightening bolt energy. The kind that could give you a heart attack or make a monster come alive. Only when the props and costumes come out does it truly become real.

The irony of illusion.

That moment just before the beginning. When anything can happen on the first day of shooting or opening night. When fake, fantasy, and delusion all come together for one last time.

Today, I remember a night a few years ago. The night before an opening. I was sitting up till the wee hours sewing the back half of a horse’s costume by hand. At 5:30 in the morning, I thought I was going to die.

And I still had the front half to go.

What kept me going was the fantasy that this little show was going to be THE show. The one that would get me out of waiting tables and transport me to another world. It’s what kept my fingers stitching till the sun came up and I was practically blind searching for the eye in the needle.

Artists have more than enough reality to deal with. You’ll excuse us if we tend to get a little silly playing with our props. Our toys. Surely you can remember what it was like to fantasize over a Tonka truck or a Barbie doll. Or even a plastic animal farm in the dirt.

We’re fantasizing, too. Fantasizing of how, one day, that animal farm just might become real.

All we’re really saying to our audience is, “Wanna come outside and play?”