# Drops



## delnor (Mar 8, 2003)

What do you guys think about making your own? I have done it a few times and didn’t have a problem making them. I was wondering how many people make their own anymore or just order or rent them from a drop company. It seems to me that most people have been renting them lately. You need a fairly knowledgeable painting staff to make a drop properly.


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## TechDirector (Mar 19, 2003)

delnor said:


> What do you guys think about making your own? I have done it a few times and didn’t have a problem making them. I was wondering how many people make their own anymore or just order or rent them from a drop company. It seems to me that most people have been renting them lately. You need a fairly knowledgeable painting staff to make a drop properly.



We really don't bother with drops because of 3 reasons:
1. Our director is a penny pincher, so he will rent them.
2. We don't really have enough space. We like our theater clean and non-cluttered
3. Nobody really knows how to paint to well in our club.

It's just easier to rent them.


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## delnor (Mar 21, 2003)

Yeah I think thats a lot of peoples perspective. You do need a lot of space, if you have a drop pit that is the way to do it. And it really isnt that expenvie just time consuming.


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## dvsDave (Mar 21, 2003)

TechDirector said:


> We like our theater clean and non-cluttered



That's a pleasant dream... our college has, like, no space in the wings.


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## Jo-JotheSoundDog (Mar 28, 2003)

Wings!

Ah the luxury of educational settings.


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## TechDirector (Apr 25, 2003)

We are renting a drop i beleive and we are doing the show "little shop of horrors" but what is really stupid is that the set IS skid row and we are renting a drop that is skid row. so it's like putting the same drop in front of the same set. i don't understand. lol.


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## Jo-JotheSoundDog (Apr 26, 2003)

Are you using the drop as the main rag? That is the only thing I could come up with that would make a little sense.


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## TechDirector (Apr 27, 2003)

Jo-JotheSoundDog said:


> Are you using the drop as the main rag? That is the only thing I could come up with that would make a little sense.



I know it's so pointless. But if he's comfortable with spending 300 bucks, thats fine with me. well......not really. lol.


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## ship (Apr 27, 2003)

The idea of renting a backdrop for Little Shop is a good one. 
At least from my interpitation of it on a standard procenium stage with this possibly normal design for the show.


Think about it in terms of wagons. One large wagon with the flower shop set with 1/2 ceiling for supporting plant, the street/alley scene with it's assorted fire escapes and side walks, and a small jack-knife stage with the dentist's office hinging out from inside the alley/street scene set. Perhaps the steet scene goes off on a diagonal angle from Down Left to Upstage Right 1/3. 



Flower shop center stage and Stage Left, 
Dentist's office and street scene off Right.

Now with these sets/wagons taking up a lot of space, they are still wagon sets commonly used on the show with the possible exception of the alley wall and it's fire escapes that can be full height but need to follow perspective. With say a 20' procenium arch, and say a 12' tall flower shop wagon set taking up most of the center stage, that's a lot of space above and around the wagon that's not decorated as it were.

All around and above the flower shop from up stage to stage left would need some scenery associated with how oppressive the city is. A painted drop would be really good for doing this.

A professionally painted drop possibly even with lighted windows would be really good for a city effect and a whole stage picture.

That would leave stage left and the wings for the plant.

(How are you doing Audri I, II and III? Renting them also?
I once owned #II and III. #II was cool lobby sculpture and it's casters are still on my road box. Both eventually went to my local college. Lots of work involved with building a working set of plants.)


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## TechDirector (Apr 28, 2003)

ship said:


> How are you doing Audri I, II and III? Renting them also?
> I once owned #II and III. #II was cool lobby sculpture and it's casters are still on my road box. Both eventually went to my local college. Lots of work involved with building a working set of plants.)



well it's actaully 4 plands is what we have. one is a styrofome ball on a pot. (really ugly). another is a oven mit glued to a bigger pot. (the funniest and sadest thing i've ever seen as a prop). number 3 is a big puppet that you can put your arm in the pot and has a fake arm around the side so it looks very cool. (prolly the best). and the biggest and last one is only good for opening up the mouth and sitting on it as a couch. we just bought a new plant that you get in a suit so you can move the arms around. but thats all i've heard. i'll keep you all posted on my journal or here.


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## ship (Apr 28, 2003)

Of the ones I worked with, the small one had a pneumatic control system to make it open up and move about. Somewhat similar to the rock and roll X-Mas gear sold during the holidays or talking fishes but on a higher tech level.

The medium sat in a flower pot that was about 3 or 4 square feet with a similar sized bulb, it had a man inside it. It was able to stand up and swallow someone. Even move about the stage. That was the lobby sculpture.

The big one had probably a 4' or 5' square steel cage inside the head for a man pulling it's various controls. It was flown in and out from above and could move about the stage from it's rigging. I think one of it's vines could even wrap around and lift a person. Very cool since it was done in the round. The plant's main body and various vines alone completely filled a cargo van. Too bad the college didn't take the cage because by the time it got to the school all the large Audri would have been is a huge blob of foam rubber and felt. No real support and a lot of work to make it ever live again.

Very cool and fun show. Wonder if they ever did the show, or if it became dumpster fill.


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## TechDirector (Apr 28, 2003)

ship said:


> Very cool and fun show. Wonder if they ever did the show, or if it became dumpster fill.



Yeah well it's not really all that fun because of the intense light cues i have planned out. After seeing broadway shows over springbreak, i feel really obsolete. lol. I hope i win a cappie award for light design.


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## Jo-JotheSoundDog (May 1, 2003)

Aw come on Tech Director, that should be the fun of it. And I hope it goes very well for you and you do win a Cappie. I wish I could drive down and check it out, but my show schedule probably wouldn't allow that. Hang in there, I'm sure it will turn out well.


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## TechDirector (May 1, 2003)

Jo-JotheSoundDog said:


> Aw come on Tech Director, that should be the fun of it. And I hope it goes very well for you and you do win a Cappie. I wish I could drive down and check it out, but my show schedule probably wouldn't allow that. Hang in there, I'm sure it will turn out well.



actually it's getting better. we got the plant in the other day and it looks amazing!!! the details are very cool. i laughed at how much S/H was for the two boxes. $400 and 5 guys. but we'll see how it goes.


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## Mattech (May 4, 2003)

what is little shop of horors about, it sounds very familiar i just cant place it.


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## ship (May 5, 2003)

Think musicals and very funny ones based upon horror.
or fairly decent movies with Tim Morantis (?sp) as the lead and Steve Martin as the dentist. Sorry but it's not on cable this month. Movie came out in the late 80s/early 90s.

Actually, it's a screen play based upon a if I remember right, a Twilight Zone original script from like the 1960s. I Saw it and it was boring. So it's a kind of paridy on a B-grade Horror TV show .

To be more specific:
Little Shop of Horrors
by Howard Ashman and Alen Menken
Musical 2 Acts
New York 1982
(The Book of 1000 Plays)


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## TechDirector (May 5, 2003)

yeah my sister went to get the movie from our local library and they had it so......not even looking at the cover, and checked it out. when she got home, she was greatly disapointed it was the older one (it wasn't even a musical) and it was one of those thing where the girl runs and breaks her ankle just as she's running away and the man jumps in and kills the plant kinda thing. When they made the re-make of it, they decided to make it a musical.


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## nate (Apr 19, 2004)

We just made a few "drops". All we did was ask local hotels/motels to donate used sheets (washed of course). We took the sheets and sewed them together to make drops and then painted them and hung them.
**Note: It is easier to paint them before hanging them as we found out the hard way.

-Nate


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