Thursday, February 09, 2012
Who was the first property maker?
Prop Authority: When I say “the first property maker”, I mean in terms of a professional person who earns a living making props. People have made props throughout history in many theatrical traditions; they certainly haven’t appeared from nowhere. Many traditions probably sustained quite a class of artisans devoted to the theater, particularly in Ancient Greece and Rome. Certainly too, there are many forms of theatre outside of our Western traditions. What I am looking at is the first group of people known as “property makers” who could make a living building props for professional theater. For that, we must look to the origins of what, in many ways, has become our idea of modern theatre and performing arts, the Elizabethans.
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3 comments:
This was an interesting piece of trivia. I was struck by the ambiguity that existed in the Elizabethan theatre about where a props artisan's job stops and a stage carpenters job begin. The fact that in over 400 years the division of labor between props and scenery has not gotten clearer is quite amusing. The industry tooling may have changed but this shows that the structure and hierarchy has not changed drastically.
I find it interesting that the lines between props and costuming or scenery are just as murky now as it was when the property maker was first coming into existence. I think that says a lot about the completely different skill sets a property maker must have in order to be successful.
This is fascinating. I never thought about the fact that we study a lot of general theatre history but don't usually go into such interesting detail. Like Cathy said, there are blurred lines between departments now that are similar to those from so long ago. The property master, on the other hand, has always had to be a jack of all trades. On another note, I love how these people all worked for the monarchy. This was some pretty official business that they were doing. I know there were smaller troupes and traveling troupes as well, but the idea of having this official, authoritative theatrical troupe is funny to me. How times have changed.
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