Theater: Foam Cakes

Hello, Dolly called for an elaborate dance number called the Harmonia Gardens waiter's gallop. Waiters would dance around the stage with cake trays, and needed props that were light and sturdy.

Here is half of the small cakes secured to hand trays. These were rough cut foam pieces in cylindrical shapes. I used various sanding methods and knives to give shape to the cake icing on the top and bottom rims.

I didn't get to paint these cakes myself as another crew member was assigned to do so, but I think the colors are pretty fun.

One of the more complex cakes was what we called the 5-tier trick cake. A clumsy waiter would fumble around with this cake as it wobbled precariously on its tray during the dance number. My instructor found a way to stack rings of polystyrene foam on a fishing rod to get the right wobbling effect and I was assigned the construction of the cake

Here the rings, cut with a bandsaw, have already been glued together and are drying out in the sun with its frosting (made from caulking). The icing swirls are made from squeezing caulking out of a snipped bag- basically treating it like icing anyway. 

Sadly again, I didn't get to paint this one either. Before painting, I sanded any accidental sharp points created from the caulking and brushed all the rings with a layer of glue to keep the caulking from chipping. This is the cake at rest on its home prop table. Below is a clip showing how all the assembled layers wobbled (with my commentary).

 

Theater: Foam Birds

Hello, Dolly has an amazing scene (choreography and dialogue wise) that takes place in a fancy restaurant called Harmonia Gardens. The choreographer wanted a small moment where a waiter skewers a cooked pheasant from a tray, which meant the prop needed to be light and reusable. We placed a funnel inside a foam piece to work around those guidelines.

Just starting the roughing process.

Once the bird got to the fine sanding stage. I joked that the base made it look like a family crest meant to hang on the wall.

The scene later called for a second stationary cooked bird and a separated leg. Here they are with a base coat of primer ready to be fiberglassed for extra protection.

This is the second bird dressed on a dinner plate. Painted it to get a roasted texture.

We ended up scrapping the leg before it could get painted, but the tech crew kept it as a potential prop for future shows. Here I am holding it for scale.

This was my first experience working with fiberglass, and honestly the process worked much more intuitively than I originally expected. I had a lot of fun sculpting and sanding these birds out. It was a great first step getting a feel for these materials, as I'll definitely be using them for future prototyping in Industrial Design.

Theater: Duvatine Silhouette

Here's a simple silhouette I made out of black duvatine. In Hello, Dolly! the titular character mentions her interest in creating silhouettes of celebrities like Ada Rehan and pulls out an example to wow the stage. 

The silhouette is backed with muslin using fabric glue. For easy access, the ends wrap around two dowels so that the piece is stored conveniently rolled up in the main character's purse, ready to be displayed.

  

Preliminary sketching with white china marker. Below is the photo of Ada Rehan I referenced. 

Theater: Woodworking

Saddleback College customizes many of the stage pieces in Hello, Dolly! in their woodshop back stage. Below are three prop wooden crates used in the show. 

I pulled the bottom pre-painted crate from the prop cage as a reference- we wanted a simple, worn style as part of a feed store set. I then constructed the upper two crates to carry a certain number of soup cans and candles, which the script required. The crates were a matter of measuring the boxed items and using the table saw with a staple gun to do the rest.

I used the same techniques to construct flies that would support the background. Here I learned how describe dimension of wood and follow blueprints from my instructor to cut the correct measurement with the chopsaw.

A fuller view of the backstage shop. In the right there are green pieces I used the router on.