People always ask how we know where all the set pieces go on the stage in the dark. Above you can see spike tape on the marley floor. Different colors and shapes tell us exactly where to place things. The tape stays on the floor, which travels with the road crew and is rolled out and taped down the the stage at each venue. 

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The prop department is responsible for many jobs on a Broadway/musical production.

The first job that the props department usually does is loading in gear from the trucks with the rest of the crews. Then we lay down marley. Marley is a vinyl-based, slip-resistant surface used as a dance floor. Almost all musical productions will use marley. It comes in giant rolls, which weigh hundreds of pounds each, and usually arrives on large steel carts capable of carrying around six rolls. The whole setup weighs several tons, and marley carts are responsible for many broken or injured stagehand feet. The vinyl surface is laid down over the stage floor and taped with marley and gaff tape. After this, the props department will sweep and French mop the surface (which they will do between and after every performance).

A French mop is basically a large, barely-wet towel slung over a big push broom. Very fancy.

A lot of stuff stored in the shop after the load-in,

The main job of the props department is to lay out or pre-set small items that the actors will use during the show. Objects like hats, pencils, pads, scarves, swords, pitchforks, fish etc.

After pre-setting props before the show, the props crew will also hand out props to their assigned actors during the performance. All of the cues (instructions about who, what, when, and where) are contained in what we call tracks—usually typed up on a piece of paper or a laminated card. The prop master (with the touring company) will also sometimes cue the crew during the show or give us a “standby” and “go” at the time when we should hand off the prop.

Many people wonder how we see everything in the dark. Everything is on a shelf and labeled in its place with tape that glows under blue light. It’s hard to miss that glowing tape.

When the shows are over the prop crew packs up the boxes and rolls up the marley, and of course we also push everything to the truck with the rest of the crew.

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Here’s an example of stagecraft trickery. How something flat looks 3D.

The amount of wigs and wardrobe on the show is also incredible. 

The cast was friendly and also quite talented. Their acting and dancing skills showed on stage but the most impressive thing about them was their singing. One of the best things about working a Broadway-type musical show is standing in the midst of the chorus while they sing the songs from the wings (at least when they’re good!).

I had the pleasure of meeting the actress Caroline Portner when she missed the cast bus to the hotel at the end of the first night. I waited with her outside until her Uber arrived. Funny thing is I didn’t know what character she played due to everyone wearing elaborate wigs and costumes in the show. I found out the next day she was one of the lead characters. Caroline is a super nice person but in the show she plays the mean girl, a sign of a really good actress.

This production brought four fully loaded semi trucks (road cases stacked 3 high), so fitting everything into our theater was pretty tight. Myself and some of our other house crew had to work with the touring crew to use the stacking motor in our shop to un-stack road cases at the load-in and re-stack everything at the load-out.

Unfortunately a lot of the company’s road cases were in bad shape, which sometimes made this difficult. (Likewise The set pieces were also in pretty bad shape). We would tell the crew, ”You ought to fix that,” to which the typical response was, “It’s just gotta last another 5 weeks!”

I don’t envy their crew for the next five weeks, but at least they all work well together and have fun. Overall, working with them was a pleasure; they were good people, and their cast was talented.

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