BRINGING IT TO THE TABLE: BY LISA WILEY, PROPS DESIGNER & ENSEMBLE MEMBER

“You learn a lot about someone when you share a meal together.” -Anthony Bourdain

Working on Seat of the Pants productions, I’ve had the opportunity to create a lot of different items to help inform the environment of the place and the people in the play. I feel if I do my job correctly, you might not even notice the “props”, they are all just part of the setting, unobtrusively enhancing the story.  Sometimes, the props are practical physical items, such as a letter, a book, a candle, a pocketwatch, etc.  I’ve also created props representing a central character whom we never see, but we feel we know them just by seeing their belongings. Other times they work subconsciously, conveying status, hopefulness, or loss. This time, for this build, some of the props will represent the most basic human needs and will be responsible for helping to bring our characters together.  A gigantic responsibility for this prop!

This prop is food.  Food brings everyone together.  Food is one of my favorite props to fabricate. Since joining SotP, I’ve fabricated fake apples, scrambled eggs and sausages, shrimp scampi, and more. When a play necessitates edible food, more items need to be assessed for the make.  One thing to consider is actor allergies and dietary restrictions.  If an actor has restrictions, then alternate consumables must be used.  Then, we figure out how to make the alternative look like the food the script calls for.  Another consideration is where can the edibles be stored to keep them safe to consume. Do we need refrigeration or heat? And then, there’s clean-up.  Real food means real dishes to clean! Since SotP is a traveling ensemble, sometimes clean-up facilities aren’t a given and clean-up can be daunting.

Grand Concourse takes place in a soup kitchen.  So, the food is really important to our story and to our characters. And since our characters eat the food, we have a lot of puzzles to solve! Because the setting and our location is an actual kitchen, that part of the puzzle isn’t a problem at all.  We can safely store food, prepare our food and clean-up is a breeze.  Actor dietary restrictions are being addressed and those solutions are coming along nicely.  I cannot give away all of the secrets before the show opens, so check with me again after the show for the answers to “how did you do that” and “what did you use for the_____”.  

But what I can reveal to you now, before the show's opening, is that food in our story is important to our characters and represents many things. It is a common thread linking our characters together. Just like in “real life”. Food is a way to celebrate. It is a vehicle for togetherness and communion.  It is a tool for solving differences and learning about our neighbors. It is nourishment for the body and soul.  

Those are some amazing qualities. So, I'm going to let this prop speak for itself. It doesn’t need any assistance from me.

Trouble came around here

Here in the South we fix something to eat

Steam rising up off the greenery

And we welcome the strangers we meet-

-”Trouble”

-Indigo Girls