Steppenwolf Theatre Company Blog – Chicago Theater, World-Class Ensemble

(Our next production, American Buffalo, is set in a junk shop and will be a very prop-heavy show. Properties Master Jenny DiLuciano took a quick break today to give us a glimpse of the early stages of their work on the play)

We are pretty early in the process. I have had several meetings with our set designer, Kevin Depinet, about the kinds of things he wants to see in this junk shop. He and I have walked through our prop storage together and he pointed out several things that he likes. I also have noted some things that we don’t have but he has in his model and in the research packet he gave me.

Those items are on our shopping and build list. We have barely begun shopping. Right now we are bringing down the things we already own that will work for the show. This afternoon we are going to start putting some of these things on the shelves that are already built. We will figure out what goes on each shelf, photograph it and box things up with detailed labels so that our setup goes a little faster when we get into the theatre for tech. I spoke with Amy Morton, the director, last week about the items that will get knocked over and/or destroyed in the temper tantrum at the end of the show. We’ve started collecting multiples of those items. We have our rehearsal props pulled and they are almost ready to go to Yondorf (the Rehearsal Hall). Once rehearsals start November 2, new ideas will start to fly and the elements that we’re working on now will come into sharper focus.

The first four out of ten shelves that Charlie is building for the show.  Lots of shelves to hold lots of stuff at the junk shop!

Our apprentice Emily is hard at work dusting the props that we’ve started collecting for the show.  Even though it takes place in a junk shop, where things would most likely be dusty, we don’t want to leave the real dust on our props for a couple of reasons.  Obviously, we don’t want to make the actors sneeze or make a make a mess of their costumes.

A smidgeon of the pile we have collected from our furniture storage. Lots of old file cabinets, crates, trunks, chairs, tables, hubcaps, steering wheels, old television sets, etc.

This entry was posted by Jenny DiLuciano on Thursday, October 22nd, 2009 at 3:44 pm and is filed under American Buffalo. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.