Author Topic: PROPS: Outdoor Shakespeare  (Read 4352 times)

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hbelden

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PROPS: Outdoor Shakespeare
« on: Jul 07, 2005, 03:39 am »
We're doing Two Gentlemen, and in the second scene Julia gets a letter which she tears up, throws on the ground, then regrets and has a whole monologue dealing with the pieces of paper on the ground.  "Wind, blow not a word away" is a line that sticks in my head as we are performing outdoors in an often windy space.  At tonight's dress, sure enough, the heavyweight cardstock we had picked for the letter flew away almost as soon as it had left her hands, making her monologue fairly pointless.

We tried soaking the letter to give it more weight; we tried adding dabs of hot glue to each going-to-be-torn piece; I'm not finding a lot of success.  I know somebody out there has faced this problem before; was there a good prop solution that didn't leave the actress in an awkward position?

Thanks,
« Last Edit: Jun 08, 2009, 10:21 pm by PSMKay »
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Heath Belden

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Mac Calder

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Outdoor Shakespeare
« Reply #1 on: Jul 07, 2005, 08:17 am »
never done the show, so I do not know the script, but a lot of it is in the way the paper is released. See if you can get her closer to the ground, and back facing the wind. And use heavy card.

I would not add something like glue to the back... It looks dodgey.

It is also in the release of the paper, if it is thrust down in a fit of rage, it will not blow as far away. If it is held in her hand and then her hand angled downwards allowing them to slide down to the ground slowly then there is more chance for a breeze to pick it up.

loebtmc

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Outdoor Shakespeare
« Reply #2 on: Jul 08, 2005, 07:30 pm »
It's paper, so it doesn't really matter what you plan or how heavy the weight - unless she physically sticks it TO or UNDER something it has a chance to blow away. I would encourage her to step on as much of it as possible during the scene (dropping a minimal number of large tears in as small an area as possible) or collect the pieces and put them under a rock or other weight - and plan on losing scraps on a regular basis.