SCENES behind the

Milwaukee Rep’s Prop Shop is All Wings on Deck

In preparation for our production of August Wilson’s Seven Guitars, Milwaukee Rep’s prop shop needed to build realisticlooking chickens and roosters that could not only move but also bleed on stage. We spoke with Props Crafts Artisans Tayler Varney and Nick Bartleson to gain a better understanding of how they approached the creation of these props.

Describe the prop chickens that are needed for the show.

Nick - There are multiple chickens in the show and each has to function differently. For example, we needed to create a rooster that could flap around as the actor held it by the feet. It also needed to bleed all around the stage when its head gets chopped off in a scene. Within this one rooster prop, we created a wing flapping mechanism that is actor-controlled, a blood rig created from a modified catheter bag, and, on top of that, beautifully sculpted feet and heads. We also added layers of feathers that were each sewn individually on to a spandex onesie in order to create the body. In addition to the rooster, we also have hens that get their heads twisted off on stage, so we added blood rigs to their necks as well.

What was your process like when approaching these pieces?

Tayler – The director, Ron OJ Parson, wanted to make these moments with the chickens really big, as they are important moments of character development within the script. While Nick worked on coming up with interesting solutions for the movement and blood mechanics, I focused on casting and sculpting the exterior to make them look like real birds.

What was the most challenging part about these props?

Nick – My biggest challenge was figuring out how we could make the wings flap. I went through about five or six versions of the mechanism before we landed on our current one, such as having them be remote controlled so that a stagehand could control it off stage, or having them be controlled through simple puppetry. I experimented with a very simple mechanism that is used in many flying toys, but eventually we learned that this was not strong enough for the needs of our production. Through our research, we found a homemade gear mechanism that we refined. Now, we can make the chickens flap with a simple battery-powered button control, so all the actor has to do is hit a button and the chicken will start moving.

Tayler – This prop is far more complex than a lot of other things we have created since it has so many moving parts –literally. Creating the feet presented a lot of challenges for me since they required a mold with a really complicated shape. Through this process I learned more about mold making and multi-part molds while also working with urethane, a material I hadn’t worked with before.

August Wilson’s Seven Guitars runs March 7 – April 2, 2023 in the Quadracci Powerhouse Theater.

How do you produce Shakespeare for a modern audience?

The decision to cast a woman in the role of Don John also came as a result of this desire to include more women, as well as revelations made by Laura and her team while conducting research into PTSD in Gulf War veterans. The Gulf War saw one of the largest single deployments of female troops to combat zones in US history. However, despite fighting in the same war, women didn’t have the same support systems or opportunities for advancement after returning home. Don John’s resentment of Don Pedro’s acclaim and support then became this representation of the differences in the way men and women soldiers were treated both during and after the Gulf War.

By adding music and a contemporary context to Shakespeare’s 400 year old words we created a richer world, expanding on the themes of truth and misogyny which modern audiences could relate to and engage with.

Producing Shakespeare for a modern audience is an interesting task. Even seasoned theatregoers might come with a lot of trepidation to Shakespeare because of the difficult language, but he deals with universal themes like love, betrayal, jealousy, and happiness that are inherently human that everyone can relate to. Our goal is to make Shakespeare’s plays accessible without diluting the quality of the original language. When his works were written 400 years ago they were populist plays, written for the masses. In order to appeal to the masses today, we use added modern context to guide the audience through the difficult language. The music we added to our production of Much Ado About Nothing, and even As You Like It from last season, has also played a significant part in making the plays more understandable for modern audiences.

When we began planning for Much Ado About Nothing, director Laura Braza had the idea to set the show in the 1990s during the Gulf War, placing it in a period in the not-too distant past so that modern audiences could relate to the content. She also believed that the lyrics that were part of the original text leant themselves well to the style of grunge music which became popular in the 1990s, and was keen on having Dan Kazemi compose original music. It was important to us that we add more female voices to our production as the script only has a handful of named female characters, and only one who speaks in more than two or three scenes. As a result, Laura and her team found poems written by 15th and 16th century female poets which were then set to grunge music, such as “Joyful/ Sad” by Louise Labé, which sounds eerily like a song by Alanis Morissette.