The Red Stuff: A Guide to Letting It Bleed Onstage

AMERICAN THEATRE: Make no mistake about it: There will be blood. Ever since the Romans broke the tradition of Greeks keeping violence out of sight, there has been blood onstage, both real and fake. As a prop master for the last 30-odd years, I’ve had to navigate my way through some truly inspirational and some pretty disastrous blood special effects ideas posed by directors and actors. That’s why I was so happy to pick up Jennifer McClure’s Bloody Brilliant, a book that explains, as its subtitle puts it, “How to Develop, Execute, and Clean Up Blood Effects for Live Performance.”