A Picture is Worth 1000 Words

Everything is so exciting around the theatre these days! We just finished the run of our incredibly popular show Bear Country and now have a two week window to carefully remove and store that set while moving in the pieces of our next show, The Furniture of Home.

Key to this upcoming play are the pull of memories and their physical embodiment, family photographs. Our props department could have just printed copies of photos from the web but they wanted the candid and haunting quality of damaged real family photographs to be strung around the set. A few days after a building wide email calling for photos, the props department had a good start on the number of photos that they'd need for the set. The photos of different employees and their friends/families, pets, homes, landscapes,etc. featured their varied lives and brings a great sense of community to the set and adds another layer of emotion for the actors.

Getting the photos was the first step but the next was to distress them so they looked as if they had been through a hurricane and the resulting flood. Shanley from props first tried to soak them in water to see how the water affected the pigment in the photos. The effect that the plain water had was a few water marks, but not the type of distressing that would result from days of soaking after the storm.


So Shanley and I went on a field trip around the outside of the building to find organic material to soak the photos in and hopefully cause more damage to the color and images. We found a great patch of Alabama Clay which I didn't get a picture of because I couldn't resist playing in the mud. Once I had cleaned up as best I could I snapped a few pictures of the rest of the distressing recipe:

One cup dark top soil. I hope Karen the master gardener doesn't mind!

One cup mulch. Probably from the guys cleaning up the extra growth out in the park.

One cup gravel for that extra banged up look. I bet this pile was intended to help fill in the gravel parking lot. I doubt they'll miss a cup or so.

Optional: Add leaves and moss for that authentic look.

Instructions: Combine all ingredients in a large bucket and add water. Stir the photos at intervals to move the gravel and other materials together.

After letting sit for a few days, Shanley has pulled the photos up and out of the muck to dry on a clothes line, very similar to what will happen to them on the set. It may take a few more dips and some clever use of paint but I know the set will be perfect like always for the opening of The Furniture of Home, playing March 6th-29th. Don't miss out on this great show, call the Box Office at 334-271-5353 or visit www.asf.net for ticket info. Try out our Loveseat Special and check back here for more insider info from the Alabama Shakespeare Festival.