Streetcar Named Desire
Opera Theatre of St. Louis
Director: Patricia Racette
Set Designer: Andrew Boyce
Props Designer: Daniel Henke
Props Artisan: Lewis Bethune
Set of love letters for Blanche. Given free reign within the direction of "10-ish letters from Blanche's ex-husband." Started with researching period letters and the characters to find an appropriate address/handwriting style.
Aged/weathered the letters using hot iron, water, crumpling, and tea stain, before tying them into the bundle in which they would be pulled from her suitcase.
Digital recreation of a period radio back panel.
Reference image for the radio back.
Radio was thrown offstage, so it needed to be nearly indestructible. We went through a number of versions/methods, eventually gluing together this large block of EVA foam. Responsible for the base build and assisted with a number of iterations.
Radio back applied to the foam base, after it was sculpted and strengthened. Wrapped the foam in multiple layers of canvas/muslin, added details with hot glue, moldable foam, tape and 5+ coats of paint. Several of the front knobs and panel were built before the designer chose to 3D print.
Recreated and laminated magazine covers, front.
Recreated and laminated magazine covers, back.
24 bottles of beer on the wall! First mock up. Note the cloudiness of the bottle and the difficulty in painting the silicone cap. Tried contact paper around bottle to protect label, but it looked bad.
Digital design recreated from period advertisements, so that it could easily be printed and applied to new bottles.
We wanted to avoid pure white on the set so the labels were printed on cream paper. Scuffed the bottles using tape as a guide. Used spray adhesive for this version.
Spray adhesive was causing lumps and difficulty in applying the labels so we switched to contact adhesive. Removed all labels and restarted. Added a coat of Modge Podge to protect the label.
Toned down white 6-pack boxes with brown paint wash and secured ends, before glueing printed design (above) on all sides and covering with contact paper.
The Modge Podge coating was warping the paper and not water resistent. At this point, the prop became drinkable and breakable, so new methods were required.
After much research and testing, we ordered waterproof, matte, sticker paper, that could be run through the regular laser printed. Added a cream background to the digital design to avoid that stark white.
Sticker paper application went well. These are waterproof, wrinkle free, and no longer require multiple coats of glue. Removed the glued on labels and replaced them all with stickers.
We ordered black and white, silicone bottle caps, so they can be easily cleaned, put on and taken off. Using silicone calk and pigment, several recipes and methods were tested before coming up with one that was thin enough to paint, with enough coverage, and could be painted/cured within 36 hours.
For the caps: mixed silicone calk with silver powder pigments, used mineral spirit to thin the silicone, painting tops first, smoothing with a glove, curing, then repeating for the sides. Note also how smooth and even the new sticker labels are.
Finished product (1 of 24.) Breakable bottles (not pictured) were ordered from an outside source, so we just printed/precut a bunch of labels so the run crew could add a sticker whenever they unpackaged a new bottle.
Finished box (1 of 6.)
Final product onstage (drinkable version.) These were heavily featured in the show as both hand props and set dressing. Production photo by Eric Woolsey.
1942 Times Picayune, digitally created period newspaper. Took several days to find/structure headlines and text, since original versions of this specific paper were not available.
Times Picayune printed/assembled, two methods. Top is toned down with tea stain, since we were avoiding any stark white onstage. 4 pages total.
More alcohol, this label digitally modified to be printed on the waterproof vinyl sticker paper.
Greyhound ticket, digitally designed to print on cardstock. Mix of custom design and reference images, so it looked consistent when printed.
Ticket reference images, pulled from internet sources.
Digitally designed period egg cartons, made as sticker wraps for cardboard boxes and standard seal stickers.
Whiskey label application, across a modern bottle. Some were printed on regular paper and glued, like this one, and some were printed on the sticker paper. Ended up with 4 bottles.
1942 Jack Daniel's label, digitally modified from period research. Designed for print on regular paper, modified for sticker paper.
Researching build plan, blue tags the preferred options. Director had issues with the amount of noise/pieces. Tried multiple methods, ended up doing a run of plaster plates while another artisan tried glued plastic ones.
Furniture Delivery. Detailed, written inspection of antiques with suggested changes/repairs.
