The GRID: In this age of bagged lettuce and pre-washed kale, meals don’t get much easier than salad. But it’s a little different when leafy greens take center stage, as they do in Women Laughing Alone With Salad, which plays the Kirk Douglas Theatre through April 3, 2016. Center Theatre Group’s prop team had to draw on their artistry, creativity, ingenuity—plus put in a lot of hours of work to create the salad characters toss, ogle, and even roll around in.
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I love how this article takes an object that a lot of us would not have even thought about being difficult to make and puts it as the focus of our minds. I think that this article also shows just how diverse the theatre needs to be. I mean, this play is all about lettuce, who would have guessed? and now, the props artisans have to find a way to make extremely realistic lettuce that meets the unique requirements of the stage such as being flame retardant or being able to be photographed and still look realistic. by explaining in detail all of the steps that these artists had to go through and all of the trial runs that had to make in order to find the perfect formula gives a great look into the amount of work that goes into the show. Its crazy how that was only one prop in a show with most likely several others. I think this article does a great job of reminding us the workmanship that goes into every single detail of a show, and to never take that for granted.
I think it is very interesting how much work goes into making prop food because they seem so simple at first. There is so much that goes into making props look realistic and also be safe to use on stage. Food props are made very often, but most of the time they do not look very realistic because there was not a lot of effort or research done to make the food accurate. Everyone knows what lettuce looks like and if it is not done perfectly people will be able to tell that it is fake even though it clearly is a prop in a show. If the prop looks realistic enough then people will go with it and believe, but if it looks fake then the audience will be distracted by the clearly fake prop on stage and not believe anything the actors do with that prop.
How cute. I think it’s great that theatre so committed to being so authentic, all the way down to their food. I am two weeks into my props stage craft mini, but I can already tell how much care they take with their craft, including the small stuff. Especially in the props department you see such a commitment to creating and completing a world that suspends disbelief. And rightfully so too, because since everyone has had a salad before an obviously fake salad would definitely make the audience disbelief. I think theatre is so similar to magic in the sense that every audience member wants the gig to be up. They want to be in on the process. They’re looking for how they were fooled, so that AFTER the show they can tell everyone else and seem smart. So you can’t slip up. It is a unforgiving field. So shout out to the props department for holding us down.
When I first started reading the article, I thought that recreating salad didn't sound that hard. This article definitely goes to show how hard it is and how much effort it can take to recreate something for the stage that both looks accurate and is within the safety parameters. The fabric/material and paint has to be flame resistant and durable enough to be reused, and it has to be able to still look good in front of a camera. Props and any theatre design in general has been described as "easier" than those for film/TV because they don't have to be put in front of a high resolution camera, but now they do. There are so many logistics and limitations that go into creative designs for the stage that people don't see. I wish this article included more photos of how the final product turned out and how it looked on stage.
What a ridiculously wonderful problem to face! I remember reading about this play several weeks ago in an article about various feminist plays which were being produced, so it’s nice to hear about it again from a more technical standpoint. One of my favorite parts of theater is all of the bizarre and terrific scenery and props effects that need to happen. The entire process from “we need something to look exactly like this” to figuring out what to use, how to make it, actually acquiring the materials, putting it together, testing it, and repeating, is so rewarding in a fascinating way. As Boevers told us in class while explaining project checklists to us, the point of doing theater is that you are (hopefully) doing something new and different each show; if you’re not, what’s the point?. The entire process described here to arrive at the final “recipe” is fantastically detailed, down to the photos and sketches of “salad research”. Although it may seem ridiculous to anyone who doesn’t understand who all of the crazy hard- working people who work in theater are, articles like this are super inspiring to me in that they show that theater as a job can be even more exciting than educational theater, since every opportunity we get will present new and bizarre challenges.
When I first read this article, I had two immediate thoughts. First was ‘what amazingly novel problem to have, trying to create boxes of fake salad’, and second was ‘is that the same Jon Ward that taught my grade the props mini last year?’ (I’m pretty sure it is). Anyway, I think that the article does a really good job of highlighting the importance of communicating with a props department as an integral part of the show. Clearly this prop shop did a lot of research and testing to come to a product that had likely never been created before for theatre. I’m sure that this shop loved it too, finding a new way to do something and being really successful with it is a part of the game that I think everyone enjoys. Knowing how integral this salad was to the show, I’d love to learn more about that production now, as it seems a rather interesting play if it’s called Women Laughing Alone with Salad.
This is so cool! I've never really thought about how intricate a of a process creating prop food is before. Most shows that I've worked on that needed some sort of food as a prop would just use the real things, but I guess if you're rolling around in it that's not really possible. The sheer amount of work that goes into recreating something as simple as lettuce crazy, as on the surface it doesn't seem like it would be too difficult. Initially when I was reading this I didn't understand why this process would take so long, but now I see that it's all about being as authentic as possible. Personally I think that the props department has one of the hardest jobs in the theatre, as there is sometimes no format for what they want to do. Some of the requests they get are so random that they to make something that no one has ever done before, which seems to be the case here. It's so great to see people putting so much effort into doing what they love, and ultimately it pays off in the end.
Food props are one of the most difficult things I have ever worked on. Not only do they have to be durable and plentiful, but they often have to look real so that they can pass for something actually delicious. Making a fake cake is one thing, but fake lettuce? Tricky. I've used shrink cellophane before for lettuce that was decorative, because shrinking the pieces gave it a wrinkly lettuce-leaf texture. But if it's being thrown around and rolled in onstage, the weight has to be right and the sound has to be right. None of that crinkly, too-light plastic. I'm thrilled that they found a solution, and it looks like it worked really well. In a picture posted on John's instagram, it is hard to tell that the salad isn't real! Huge props to them (pun intended) for figuring out a good solution and pulling it off. It's hard to imagine the amount of work that goes into making each leaf, but in the end they came up with an amazing product. I hope they can find a place to re-use it in the future!
First I’d just like to comment on the premise of this play, Women Laughing Alone With Salad… I immediately recognized that it is based off of the common ‘woman laughing with salad’ stock photos (which has now become a meme). I find this both hilarious and also very interesting – I’ll have to find more out about this piece. Now back to the actual article topic: properties. Something I learned this year at CMU was how expensive it is to have real food in a show. I always thought having food onstage would be somewhat straightforward (after checking allergies, etc). But real food is expensive! It can go bad! And if it’s unhealthy, many actors would not want to eat something unhealthy everyday as part of the show. So having real food in a play is quite tricky. This production is especially challenging because they need to re-use something that looks like real food over and over. This means that something that is mimicking an organic, fragile material must be more durable than it appears. I think the solutions this team came up with shows how much detail goes into prop construction.
While having real food props onstage present its own unique set of challenges, making materials that are not organic look like real food is something else altogether. Everyone’s had a salad at least once in their lives and they would immediately be pulled out of the story by a poorly made fake one. This is what I love so much about props, in the words of Forrest Gump “You never know what you’re going to get.” Every show brings new and interesting challenges to every department, or at least hopefully it will, but no one gets more curveballs than the props department. Where else would you be asked to create a fake salad which a person can roll around in? Not only do props artisans handle pretty much whatever you throw at them, the amount of work and dedication that goes into each piece, each lettuce leaf, is amazing. Props artisans really have to be up for anything to do their job well and I think because of that some of the best artists working in theater can be found in the props department.
I first heard about this show via another post on this blog a few weeks ago, and for some reason I kind of assumed they would be using real salad. Now I realize that that wouldn't really be possible, but even reading the title I had no idea that it would be such a process to make something that we think of as so simple-- salad is, after all, one of the most common no-fuss meals. This article was also interesting to me since I've been doing work study in the prop shop for the past month, because now I realize more of the role that the props department has is making sure everything is both realistic and safe for everyone on stage to use. I wonder how long it took them to develop this process, since it seems like it was highly improved from beginning to end. Things like this prove why I love working in the prop shop, because there's so much variance in the kinds of thing you're asked to make. Five giant boxes of fake salad isn't exactly something you can pull from stock, and sometimes its the smallest details, like the kind of finish on the leaves, that are the most difficult to attain.
First off: HEY JON WARD! YES!
I am so constantly amazed by the lengths that props teams will go to make everything on the stage true to the world and what it is meant to be. The smallest details are never overlooked and even the sheen of a piece of lettuce needs to be exactly the way lettuce sheens. I think this is a prime example of just how crazy we theatre people are about our work. It is the layer of commitment that non-theatre people often do not understand, and the reason why more and more business folks want to hire theatre people (yeah, they do). I have to admit, I sort of assumed they would just be using real salad...though now I realize why that is silly and impossible. I am glad they were able to come up with a viable solution.
Theater creates the weirdest challenges. I can’t think of any other industry where needing to figure out how to make a giant fake salad is just part of the job. Projects like these provide really interesting challenges. In this case, it forced them to really consider what makes salad look like salad, and what aspects of it are important. From there, they basically had to think about materials and techniques as the properties of those in order to match the aspects they considered important. This sort of thing is part of why I decided to pursue theater professionally. It creates interesting projects that require a lot of creative problem solving in order to execute the designers vision and build a world to tell the story. This show is a really good example of that, and it was great to read about the process they went through to figure out how to get the result they wanted. I really hope I get to do projects like this in the future.
What an interesting project! Before I even begin to think about making the salad prop, I think about why someone would write a play that revolves so much around salad. The playwright must be green..
The process that props go to before they hit the stage is astounding to me. I have so much respect for props artisans because they are handed such odd tasks and are expected to just figure it out. Props masters have to have so many skills crafting ability, communication, sometimes even drafting and most definitely carpentry and painting. They also have to know how to manage budgets. It's crazy to think about how much they really handle.
This project sounds exciting. I am always blown away at the amount of time it takes to make inedible objects look edible, and makes me question why they couldn't just use real lettuce. Though now I understand why.
Properties masters must have so much patience. This lettuce process sounds like it took so many steps of trial and error before they were able to settle on the right decision, and how to make all the lettuce.
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