Often in play reviews the writer mentions a few things; how the actors portrayed the character, a brief summary of the plot and on occasion the costumes, but there is one giant aspect that many forget to mention, the props and the people that put them there.
Those little details have the ability to bring a scene alive and tell us more about a character than the words being recited and they are put there by people like Patricia A. York, one of Lansing’s most well-known prop people, who worked at the Boarshead Theater for 25 years.
The Boarshead Theater were York worked for 25 years.
As York will gladly tell you moments when props are pointed out in a review are rare, so when it does happen it stays with a person, much like the first time she was mentioned by name in a review.
“All though they [the boxing gloves] are never used or even referred to in the script they speak volumes of this man before we even met him,” recited York, quoting verbatim the words that a reviewer had written about the scene she had created.
“All I thought was someone get’s it,” she beamed.
Even though being mentioned is rare many props people still have a deep passion for what they do, they’ve been bitten with the disease as York so fondly puts it.
“Doing props is not glorified in any way shape or form,” said York. “No strange theater child wakes up one morning and goes ‘I wanna do props.’”
But for some, York says, they may have been born to do it. They have a way at looking at something and thinking of all sorts of things to do with it, developing the essential eye that comes with the job. Props people also have to be able to be a detective and a researcher, among other things.
While some theaters have a dramaturge, a researcher, many community theaters do not, so people such as York have to figure it out by themselves, adding historian to the list of trades, a task that wasn’t exactly easy when York began working.
“It’s a lot different than when I started, especially with research. I had to go to the library and look it up, now people just use the Internet,” said York, showing how much of a difference Google has made in the theater world. “It [Google] also makes it a lot easier to create money.”
Not only do props people have to be a detective, a researcher and a historian but they also have to be able to be get all out of a dollar, an art that York has perfected.
Over 12 and a half seasons the budget York got was rarely over $300 per show and there were only a few instances when she went over said budget. So how does she, and others that work in her area, make that budget work?
“There are three rules of theater. You can have it cheap. You can have it good. You can have it fast. Pick two, because you can never have all three,” said York. Adding that those are rules that she lives by and something she truly believes should be taught to every child on the planet.
While York does live by those rules of theater she also mentions that working with other theaters is a big help, making it known that much like the Lansing theater community the prop masters of Lansing are also a very tight knit group, making it possible to have a collection of people from other theaters that you can call on when you need to find props.
“The first thing I do after I have my props tracking list is call other theaters,” said York. “You build up a network.” Which includes getting phone calls even after you’ve stopped doing props professionally, much like the calls York still gets from people.
Even though York no longer does props professionally, she has 25 years worth of stories, which are told with a passion that you don’t often see from someone that had the same job for that long.
Her stories range from the most difficult plays to do, namely anything that contains a lot of food, to what it’s like to make a prop and watch it be destroyed, by a women who “didn’t act, she just did.” She also went on to mention how all actors are like big children when they get around props, and how she had to hand out a props rules list before every show. While those stories are entertaining it’s the ones about how her props had the ability to freak people out that are the best.
“My greatest triumph was making a woman faint,” said York with a giant smirk on her face. “When you can really scare people in a theater, it’s a big deal.”
During the show there is a scene when a man has his eye gouged out and then the “eye” is thrown on the ground. To make this look real York had pulped a grape for the eye and while the character was tipped back he was putting blood around where his eye should have been. Then the tormenter takes the eye and throws it on the ground, making a rather gross sound, and that, according to York, is what made the woman faint.
While those triumphs are something that York obviously enjoys it’s moments when she can say that she has done her absolute best that make her the proudest, since she, and other props people, truly are artists, being the ones to have the ability to set up a scene and therefore the tone of the play.
“There’s a great sense of satisfaction as a theater person that you’ve done your job exceptionally well,” said York.
