May 13, 2025 • 57 mins
Today’s interview is with Jim Guy (he/him), legendary props wizard. Jim has propped an estimated 600 plays, musicals and operas. His work has appeared on and Off-Broadway, on tour, in print, on television, in museums and onstage. Jim was Properties Director at Milwaukee Repertory Theater for 24 seasons. In his “retirement” he now freelances, teaches, consults and serves as Membership Co-Chair and Past President of the Society of Props Managers (S*P*M). We’re going to learn about his upcoming book “Firearms Safety for Stage”, finding fun, perspective, and personal connection in the workplace, and steeling yourself to rejection.
One takeaway I can offer you already? Ask yourself ‘what did I learn from this?’
If you enjoyed this interview, find Jim online at @JimGuyProps.
The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers themselves and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Living Arts Detroit.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Hello, I'm Laura Scales, a dedicated arts facilitator, career counselor, and the CEO ofLiving Arts Detroit.
Join us as we chat with both experienced and emerging artistic professionals who haveignited their creativity and shaped their careers to thrive while living in the arts.
Today's interview is with Jim Guy, legendary props wizard.
Jim has propped an estimated 600 plays, musicals, and operas.
(00:25):
His work has appeared on and off Broadway, on tour, in print, on television, in museums,and on stage.
Jim was properties director at Milwaukee Repertory Theater for 24 seasons, and in hisheavier quotes here, retirement, he now freelances, teaches, consults, and serves as
membership co-chair and past president of the Society of Props Managers.
We're going to learn about his upcoming book, Firearms Safety for Stage, finding funperspective and personal connection in the workplace, and stealing yourself to rejection.
(00:52):
One takeaway I can offer you already, ask yourself, what did I learn from this?
For more, stay tuned.
Hello!
Welcome to an episode of Living in the Arts.
We have an incredible guest with us, Jim Guy.
I'm gonna let Jim introduce himself in just a moment, but first, full disclosure, I haveknown Jim for a number of years as we used to work together at a theater, but Jim has been
(01:16):
doing props for 45 years.
That is so wild to me.
To commit yourself to one art form for multiple decades of your life.
He has served as a teacher, a freelancer, a staff member.
He is a consultant.
He is the membership co-chair and past president of the Society of Props Masters.
(01:36):
I think lovingly referred to as SPAM, but also maybe SPM, not sure, either We thought itwas SPAM.
And he's currently working on a book, Firearms Safety for Stage, a Comprehensive Guide forProp People, Stage Managers, Production Crews, and Technical Staff.
Jim is also the person who taught me how to use firearms safely.
(02:00):
So yeah, Jim, would love firearms in plays.
In your plays.
don't know how to use firearms in life and I have no interest in it really.
But Jim, introduce yourself to the listeners please.
I'm Jim Guy.
I'm a career prop person or repeat offender prop person.
I've been doing this since I started at the Cleveland Playhouse.
(02:24):
ah And professionally, I was doing it just for grins before that in 1980.
And I'm beginning to recognize patterns.
ah I teach.
ran the MFA program at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
which remains a wonderful MFA program for prop people in prop management and design.
(02:49):
I teach my firearm safety for stage class, a full day class all over the country totheaters and uh opera companies and professional and student organizations.
And I brew my own beer and I have a puppy.
And my wife's the best damn soft props person on the planet.
(03:12):
Oh, nice.
You are a legend, truly.
That was one of the highlights was getting to meet you on my very random, I wonder ifMilwaukee rep will let us in.
And they did and I got to chat with you.
But let's dive into the questions.
Good thing, bad thing.
Before we dive into any questions about your career, hang on.
(03:34):
like to do, Laura is actually the person who likes to do this at living arts meetings.
I do.
We do a thing called good thing, bad thing, where uh if it's just like a table setting,how are you doing today?
What is a good thing in your life?
What is a bad thing?
It could be about work.
It could not be about work.
It could be about life.
The rules are you may not.
have only bad things.
(03:55):
You must have at least one good thing.
You can have two good things, but you can't have two bad things.
So for me, I'm gonna start with my bad thing is I recently learned that a lot of myfriends are shoe wearers in the home.
And this feels catastrophic to me personally.
(04:16):
So that is my bad thing.
My good thing.
Laura's laughing because she's one of the people who I recently met in her own home, butshe came into my home with her shoes.
It was catastrophic.
Several friends of mine did it all within like one weekend of visiting and I was like, whoraised you?
It was very dramatic.
It was very Midwestern sensitivities of me that I didn't know I felt so strongly about.
(04:37):
And my good thing is that my friends still love me after I had a meltdown about theirshoes.
So it was wild.
was I turned 30 and was like, I won't stand for this.
So sudden.
Yes.
ah My good thing is that we're on this call.
I'm really excited to kind of jump in and learn more as a stage and production manager foralmost my entire career.
(05:05):
Firearm safety was always the one that made me go, so it's so exciting that there arepeople actually out there.
Teaching, because I have, I'm sure everyone who's worked in the industry has a horrorstory about firearms going wrong.
ah I'll start with two bad things.
One break in the rules
(05:25):
Yeah, how about that, huh?
Get it out of the way, Claire.
Hey, yeah, as long as you end it with a good thing, we're good.
oh
sure.
Well, I actually had to search for the bad things, but you guys inspired me, so thank you.
uh One is the political climate in the country today, uh over which I am very concerned.
(05:51):
I'm fairly politically active.
And wow, is this hard to watch, much less live through.
Yeah.
And the other is that I haven't taken my shoes off since 1979.
I'm so sorry.
ah I sleep in them.
ah I swim in them.
It just happens.
(06:14):
Yeah, I don't know.
This is because Jim is a magical figure, like I'm not certain Jim is like a human, likeJim just like appears like when we were working together, I felt like I would turn a
quarter and Jim would just like be there.
So it's not lost on me that like maybe you just exist in full form with shoes.
m
Well, that would keep me from not wearing shoes in the shop.
(06:38):
Oh!
There you go.
Okay.
And, geez, there's so much good stuff going on right now.
um I finished the outline for my book, which was like pulling my own teeth.
And the editor that's handling it wrote back and said that she really likes it, andthey're putting it out for peer review before I actually start smearing my brains on
(07:05):
paper.
Cool!
Yeah.
And I'm going to be presenting the full course at USITT on their Wednesday, what aprofessional development you got to pay to get into this one workshop.
And I have three plays and an opera coming up in the spring, all working with people Ireally enjoy working with on projects I'm excited for.
(07:36):
And one of them is going to be
So much fun to do set decoration on.
And set decoration is my true passion.
And I've already picked up three shows for next season.
Dear listener, Jim also told me he was retired.
LOL.
(07:59):
Yes,
It's the worst retirement ever.
I did not retire from doing what I love doing with people that I like doing it with onprojects that I think are worthwhile.
I retired from work in 15, 16 overlapping shows a year and often feeling like I had nothad the time to focus my creative energies on a show that really deserved it because I had
(08:29):
two other shows.
attached to my ankles or breathing down my back.
And ah I'm still getting to work with the same people that I always loved working with.
And I'm being treated like a designer, because I believe that I am.
Especially if you're doing set decoration pieces and things like that like there is deeplevel of design that goes well
(08:52):
I mean, you can get me going on this later, but the contribution that props can make to aplay getting its message across, not just being pretty or being gritty or whatever, but
the contribution that props can make to actually getting the point across and helping theactors and the director and the designer to get what they want out of the play, that's the
(09:18):
most fun.
That's the coolest.
Now, I'm gonna ask a question that I just wanna make sure we table set.
For folks who are less familiar with theater and we talk about you being a props person,what, how do you define being a props person?
You just set me up for that, didn't you, Claire?
I did.
OK, well sing along if you know the words.
(09:39):
The Props 101 definition.
This is what I used to tell my sainted grandmother every year when I'd come home forThanksgiving.
And she'd say, what is it you do again?
Props 101.
If you have just built a house from the ground up, so
(10:00):
All you've got is a raw house.
You've got floors and ceilings and walls and doors and windows and that's pretty much it.
That's the set.
It is the structure within which the play takes place.
Everything that goes into that space to make it your house in this time under thesecircumstances.
(10:22):
So the floor coverings, the light fixtures, the switch plates, the rugs...
uh the kind of light bulb you use, the furniture, the luggage that you carry in when youmove in, everything in your pockets, everything in the luggage that you do not wear,
(10:43):
because if you wear it, it's a costume, everything that you eat, drink, read, smoke,break, shoot, burn, and the matches you light it with, that's the props.
It's the stuff that helps to tell the story without words so that somebody doesn't have towalk in and say, here I am in a slightly run-down English manor in roughly 1952 outside of
(11:10):
London during a snowstorm.
You can tell everything about that just by the first person making their first entranceand sometimes without even people on stage, saving the actors a great deal of exposition
and
The props is what supports the script visually.
(11:31):
It supports the actors' performances physically.
And it helps to keep, if done right, helps to keep the audience's head in the game.
That is, theater audiences are smart people.
Except for that a**hole in the second row who is texting.
(11:54):
He's not smart.
m
everybody else in the theater, they're a smart group and everybody knows something aboutsomething.
So you've got an expert on something in every house that you play to.
And if the woman in the mousetrap, ah which I just did last season again for Next ActTheater was a riot and really pretty.
(12:23):
Come for the drapes, stay for the furniture.
Oh, Margaret killed those drapes.
Anyhow, ah she walks on, she picks up the phone, and she punches a number in, and shestarts to talk.
And yeah, are you listening to that conversation?
Or are you listening to the little voice in your head saying, what the hell, they didn'thave push button phones in 1952?
(12:51):
Yeah, Jim saw me, for the listeners, Jim saw me make kind of a skeptical face as he said,push buttons.
And I was like, wait a minute.
Yeah.
But you see it happen.
And theater's compressed reality.
Nobody just comes out and says stuff to say stuff.
Every word, every sentence has been carefully crafted by both the director, by both theplaywright and director, and then through the actors to make that work for the play, to
(13:23):
get the story across, to get the mood across, to help set up for something else.
And if you miss four or five words, who knows what part of that story is not going to landwith you.
So it's kind of up to me.
One of the best introductions I ever got from a director was recently the lovely EliseEdelman was introducing me to her cast and said that they should learn to talk to me about
(13:53):
the things that we need to talk about, because when they hire me
they get not only a person who gives them stuff, but kind of a dramaturg and a historian.
Some designers used to call me uh the History Channel.
I got a pretty good handle on that sort of thing.
After 40 years of making props for how many different plays and how many different timeperiods and everything else, I'm glad to hear you've retained some of it.
(14:21):
Yeah, well, over 600 plays and operas and pieces of musical theater, to the best of myknowledge.
amazing.
And that's rough.
And that was from three years ago.
And so I've logged a few more since then.
Wow, I can't, we haven't even started with our like actual list of questions for you.
(14:44):
There are two things that we like to kind of get at with people.
One is their path that led them into choosing this thing.
And the other is sort of, was there a moment that you realized that you were in it for thelong haul?
Yes.
What was that moment?
oh And if you want to expand on your path a little bit, would love to hear that as well.
(15:07):
You oh
I have always been a visual thinker.
My sister, my sister the doctor, the PhD, she remembers everything that she has ever read.
Like, no kidding.
It's scary.
(15:29):
I think so, yeah.
I remember almost everything I've ever seen.
I have a photographic memory.
And I never thought of it that way until it was pointed out to me by a production managera few years ago.
But I kind of do.
I remember when I was like 10 years old rearranging the model cars on the shelves in myroom and planning to repaint that one because it didn't work with the wall color and stuff
(15:56):
like that.
I was an odd child.
And I started it well.
This is like my third or fourth career.
ah was right out of undergrad.
I was a fine arts reference librarian who did theater at night.
And then it became clear that I was dragging my ass in there and doing a he's practicallyawake job of being a librarian ah because I was spending so much time doing theater.
(16:31):
So I went to grad school.
And I decided to double major.
ah I worked on my master's in library science and my MA because they did not have an MFAat that time in stage management at Kent State University.
And when I got to my third year, realized, I don't really, I'm not emotionally equipped tosit behind a desk.
(17:01):
I'm a little more tight.
I cannot imagine you as a stage manager, like a career stage manager.
I was a pretty good stage manager, but the librarianship was the problem.
I loved doing the research.
I loved helping people define the fine points of things and all that.
But you spent so much time sitting and going through cards and so I mean, this ispre-computer library world to card catalog.
(17:27):
yeah.
The Dewey Decibel system is my Bible anyway.
So I.
went into, I decided, yeah, I just finished the master's in stage management.
I started it, I got accepted for a PhD, and then I realized weeks before starting the PhD,I'm going into the 20th grade.
(17:53):
And if I do this, it is more than likely I will spend the rest of my life talking abouttheater, but not necessarily doing it.
So I quit just weeks shy of starting my PhD.
And uh I got a job.
(18:13):
I moved back to my hometown, Cleveland, Ohio.
And through friends, former students of mine, actually, uh I found a job that I thoughtwas going to be a placeholder, working in the box office at the Cleveland Playhouse, the
place where I saw my very first professionally produced play.
So it was kind of a thrill.
(18:33):
And I worked in the box office for about a year.
And then they tried to get me into management and make me the subscription director.
And I've kind of never joined a club that I haven't ended up president of.
And the business manager told me, know, there'll be a substantial bump in salary.
(18:57):
And I told him, that's great for the two weeks before I throw myself off the roof.
Yeah.
So they decided to move me to another department.
They moved me into the marketing department to do brochure design because I did graphicdesign and uh proofreading and writing copy and doing display work, know, shop windows
(19:19):
downtown oh to advertise the shows.
during that time, and that was kind of fun, that was a good time.
And I got to get up and move around.
And oh during that time,
I was stage managing at a few other small venues in Cleveland.
And uh I believe, and I made it clear at the Playhouse, I was looking for an in to theproduction department.
(19:44):
So they knew that.
And I was doing a production, oh I wasn't stage managing because they found out I had ahand with props.
So on this show, I was the prop master and prop run person.
for a production of The Iceman Cometh.
(20:05):
Four acts and every syllable of The Iceman Cometh.
Four hours of Eugene O'Neill presented up close and personal in a black box.
And it was a great production.
And God, it was fun to dress because that nasty bar and
(20:29):
the saddest birthday party on the planet in Act 3.
I mean, was just, it was so much fun to do.
And one night I am uh emptying out fake whiskey out of relabeled bottles and stuff likethat.
And somebody comes downstairs and said, hey, Jim, uh the artistic director from theCleveland Playhouse, Richard Oberlin, and their production manager, Jim Irwin, just saw
(20:58):
the show.
And they want you to meet them upstairs in the bar for a drink.
Little knowing that that is where I spent Act Four.
So my seat was still warm.
And I went up and they offered me the job of prop carpenter at the Cleveland Playhouse.
(21:19):
So I did that for a while, but I was still stage managing on the side.
And uh for a summer gig,
I landed a job working for a guy that I had gone to high school with who had been HalPrince's assistant on the original production of Sweeney Todd.
(21:41):
Sky and I didn't really like each other very much, but we were both good at what we didand, you know, work's work.
Sometimes that's what you need, effect.
they hired me to stage manage ah a production, a scaled down production of Sweeney Toddthat they were developing with the Prince Organization to go into smaller theaters.
(22:07):
They called it the Teeny Sweeney Project.
it was such a great show.
And I had seen the original on Broadway and I'm not a musicals guy.
But ah a friend of mine said, no, you got to see this.
And I did.
And it is still to this day one of my favorite things I've ever seen.
(22:27):
ah
Yeah, I big prop show also.
yeah, but mean just...
And it's an opera and it's huge and it's so intertwined and all sorts of other artsystuff.
oh so we're doing this and uh our prop guy was way behind on getting us decent things.
(22:53):
So I was using the Cleveland Playhouse's prop shop during the day.
to start propping the show with the crucial stuff.
And I brought this guy in about 10 days before we moved into the theater for tech.
And I said, hey, you got to tell me how the barbershop murders work because I can't justbreak this to my guys on tech or we're going to burn a day and a half getting that right.
(23:21):
I don't have it in that space.
And the guy said, well, I was going to start on the blood stuff this week.
oh And I said, yeah, I think you're going to start as a greeter at Kmart this week becauseyou're useless.
And I went to the producer and I said, look, nobody knows this show better than me exceptthe director.
(23:51):
Because of our wacky rehearsal schedule, I've got my days mostly free.
I believe that I can prop Sweeney Todd in 10 days and get it on stage for openingcomplete.
Ho!
And they said, what's your figure?
(24:11):
And I gave them a figure and they said, here.
And I got to stage manage a show that was the most fun of any show I ever rehearsed, uhteched or called at the same time that I got to prop it.
And props won.
(24:32):
I had the best time of my life.
And I was so completely prepared to prop it because of my experience as a stage managerand frankly because of my dramaturgical background as a fine arts reference librarian.
I used to tell my students that if you put a fine arts reference librarian and a stagemanager in a can and you shake it real hard, what spills out on the table is a prop
(24:59):
person.
Which makes absolute sense.
oh
it played to all of my strengths and all the things that I like doing and it also plays tothe fact that I have the attention span of a gnat because no two days are alike and I mean
you could do four hamlets in one season and not...
(25:22):
Yeah.
I still get to build those two things together and shook them up and you didn't like to dothings with your hands, I guess you kind of get a dramaturge.
But it makes sense that if the person actually wants to move about the cabin during theday, you definitely get a props person.
And as it turns out, uh I'm an inventor and a designer and a mechanic and uh to someextent an engineer and I get to make it pretty.
(25:53):
Yeah.
And I got to work with the best, smartest people ah that I have ever worked with.
The guy who was my mentor, the late great Richard Gould had
the best attitude toward work that I have ever seen.
To the day that he died, I would walk on fire to work with Richard.
(26:16):
And I still have little, what would Richard do moments when I'm stuck on stuff?
I feel like I am the second generation of the Richard Gould University of Props.
And now there is a third and there's a fourth coming through one of my students.
And it's all about our approach to doing the play and managing humanely.
(26:42):
And that is, I believe, one of the most important parts.
what I see lacking and diminishing in many producing organizations because of the strugglejust to keep the damn doors open.
And I don't think
(27:02):
if we're gonna produce the quality of art that we should be producing and keep people onthe job long enough to get really good at what they do and to develop a shorthand with
their coworkers so that it's easier to do the job.
If it becomes a revolving door of people who go in enthusiastic and then get fed throughthe people mill, think theater's gonna lose a lot.
(27:31):
Yeah.
I think it has, unfortunately.
has, yeah.
I'm curious, so we love to ask the question of what strategies have you developed to takecare of yourself, but also I'm curious to hear you talk about that philosophy in what you
instill in your students as well.
So the idea of what are you doing for self-care, but also what are you encouraging thoseyou're teaching to do as they're looking at this industry?
(27:59):
I failed self-care for several decades.
it, well, you know, it's just how it was, really, you know?
Yeah.
If you had to, then you did.
And I will admit that probably it took, and my wife is an artist in her own right, as wellas being a theater artist.
(28:24):
And we are both pretty much workaholics.
And it actually took having kids to kind of snap us out of it and realize, my God, there'sother people out there.
Yes.
And I was never really good at self-care.
(28:47):
I think it actually took the pandemic to force me to step back and
see what I was doing to myself.
And I was my own worst enemy in a lot of ways for a lot of years.
And I was pretty angry.
(29:08):
A lot of the time, I think that the pandemic really gave me perspective.
Now, I have always tried to get my students and my young employees
not to wring themselves out like I did and like so many people of my generation did.
(29:29):
And I think in part, and this is just right off the top of my head, my contemporaries andI, in many ways, felt a much more personal connection to the people we worked with and the
organizations that we worked for and made art with.
(29:50):
And that was fostered by those organizations.
And now you get a lot of, theater's not family.
And you know, it used to be, it really did.
And if you did it right, it really did.
It wasn't just the art factory.
It's where people experience joy and creativity together.
(30:12):
wonder too, with the, cause I, being of a different generation of theatrical professional,I have worked at places I have loved and I have felt really like personally connected to.
And I've definitely been the girl who's like, stop calling me your family.
Like if another executive director says that we're family, I'm like, no.
Usually when that's happening, it's someone who's like, we're family, read.
(30:37):
So you should do things for free and for more and for more than I ask of you.
Whereas I feel like the connections you are talking about, Jim, are like more like ahealthy relationship rather than like the top family relationship.
I still have, I'm still in touch with people from almost all of my shops over 40 years.
(30:59):
people who have worked for me here in Milwaukee, they still come over to dinner.
We still meet for drinks.
We still go to ball games together.
Every once in a while we'll see a play.
It's a...
It's a different thing.
It really is.
And Claire, also, there's the people who keep telling you how easy they are to work for orwork with.
(31:27):
Yeah, that's a red flag on the playwright.
I worked with one director here in town.
Loved the guy.
Known him since he was a kid.
uh A good artist maybe thinks himself into a hole sometimes.
But the more times that he tells you how easy he is to work with, the more you should belooking over your shoulder.
(31:54):
you just don't smell the train coming.
Yeah.
It's true.
It's true.
I'm wondering as an educator and, you know, a theater professional to your degree, whatadvice do you have for people who are interested in getting, like, for people who are
(32:16):
interested in getting to where you are now and, you know, becoming the next gym guy, ifyou will, but also like for people who just found out about props through this episode.
Like what is your advice for them?
ah You're never gonna get rich.
ah Well, unless you go into the commercial end of it, ah anybody who can do theater propscan do props in any other.
(32:50):
Like I said before, I've done a little TV, I've done a couple of award shows, I've done atiny bit of film work, I've done a lot of
print stuff.
I've done museum work.
I've done display work.
ah I wouldn't advise teaching unless you have done the job because there's so much more todo in props than just knowing what the cure time is on something or which end of the glue
(33:25):
gun is warmer.
So I would say if you're gonna teach it, do it first.
Because you do not want...
And you gotta keep growing.
You've gotta keep learning things.
I knew somebody, uh a long time prop person, who I knew they were pretty much done withprops because they said, you know, can I use you as a reference?
(33:48):
Because I'm gonna start looking around.
Because I already know everything I need to know ah about props.
So I'm gonna look for some new challenges.
And I had been at it at that time for like 25 years or so.
And I thought, jeez, I wish I knew everything I had to know about bronze.
I guess they were just satisfied with their knowledge.
(34:09):
They were like, okay, no more.
Yeah, yeah, and nobody could tell them anything, which was unfortunate.
It's usually the kind of person who doesn't have any more to learn is the kind of personunwilling to learn more.
Yeah, but every season that I keep propping shows, I feel like I get to be a better propperson.
(34:32):
Especially young people, admitting what you don't know is a lot more important thantelling people what you do know.
Mm-hmm.
And you may think you know all about a subject.
Talk to somebody else who also knows something about the subject.
I go to firearm safety workshops presented by other people in organizations on a regularbasis when I can find them.
(34:58):
There aren't many anymore, unfortunately.
I always, you know, at least I'll learn either the yeses or the nos of teaching a firearmsafety for stage workshop.
if nothing else.
You can always keep learning.
You can always keep expanding your knowledge.
(35:19):
And it's not always about finding an easier way to do it.
It's about finding a better way to do it.
Done is not beautiful.
Beautiful is done.
And if it takes extra time and extra effort, then you just do that.
which is in direct opposition on the show.
(35:41):
typically say Dunn, sometimes Dunn is beautiful.
Because sometimes Dunn has to be beautiful.
But you're right.
There's another side to that coin, especially if you're putting something on stage.
You need to allocate your resources, your time, your money, your creative possibilities,and your staff the right way.
(36:01):
And not spend a lot of time on things that will not have as great an impact orcontribution on the produced work.
Well, and props has to have a lot to do with prioritizing things.
Because there's gotta be, I mean, if you're dressing a set, if you have key props,whatever it is, like, you only have so much time.
(36:22):
Another important part is to talk to the actors.
I know a lot of young prop people who don't talk to the actors.
And for me that does not work.
Here's another, uh Clark can sing this with me too.
Actors have the hardest job in theater.
(36:42):
Look at what these guys have to do.
They've to get up there.
They're speaking someone else's words in someone else's accent.
wearing someone else's clothes, shoes, and hair.
They're walking around going from place to place in a manner and a time that someone elsetold them to do.
(37:08):
They have to be on a particular spot at a particular moment.
Or what
could have been beautiful human chess can turn into human and technical pinball.
And then you're going to lead between 50 and 1,000 people into the room who paid a lot ofmoney to sit down and judge them right in front of them.
(37:41):
I'm not up for that kind of thing.
I couldn't do it.
I tried doing it.
uh No.
These guys...
Our job is to help them do their job.
I'm the only one who pays to see the furniture.
Aside from that, everybody is coming to be taken away by a story.
(38:01):
And if the actor isn't taken away by the story, then they're not taking anybody with them.
And so it is my job to help make them feel like they are in the place they're supposed tobe, handling the things they would be handling.
And these things should reflect who they are and what they are in this play and in thelife offstage of this character as well.
(38:29):
Backstory.
So talking to an actor about their backstory or coming to them and asking them, would yourcharacter Lloyd, would Lloyd have this or is Lloyd more of a this thing man?
Does Lloyd have his cell phone in his front pocket?
(38:50):
Does he even have a phone?
What does his wallet look like?
Does he sit on it?
Does he throw it out into the like, yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
that's, I think that's a large part of it is getting involved very deeply in the texts andthe performances and to steel yourself for rejection because it could be the best, most
(39:16):
beautiful thing that took you weeks to shop or days and days and days to build.
And it could be exactly what it's supposed to be.
and you get it into rehearsal.
And if it's not helping the play or the actor, it's not a bad prop, it's just not thecorrect prop.
And you're going to have to throw it overboard and start over.
(39:39):
My closest, dearest friend, uh Miss Jenny Pinson, is a prop master.
early in both of our careers, she had to make an octopus maypole for one of our firstprofessional productions.
And it was stunning.
It was beautiful.
And she had to do the physics of how are all these characters gonna do this for Seussicalthe musical.
(40:02):
And she was up two overnights, just her and a glue gun and a very drafty.
Drafty studio and they and we had to cut it and I was like, please like oh Yeah, it's likeI will tell her and she just But we kept it so we took it off the the maypole and kept the
the octopus head and legs
(40:25):
You have to ask yourself, what did I learn from this?
And how will this be good for things that I build in the future?
And it doesn't hurt to have a sense of humor about it.
In my later years, I was at the Cleveland Playhouse for about 10 years.
(40:46):
In my later years at the Cleveland Playhouse, we had a little extra space because we tookover another building and we opened the Cut Prop Museum.
We had little title cards about what the prop was and who built it and what play it wasfor and how long it lasted on stage.
(41:07):
Yeah, if you're not having a little fun at work, especially in a nonprofit, you're notgetting paid enough.
You better be having a little fun.
If it's not fun, you just shouldn't be doing it.
know couple of prop masters who have no apparent sense of humor or get no real joy out ofwhat they're doing.
(41:30):
And I feel bad for them and I feel bad for the people that work for them and with them.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think a uh carefully curated sense of whimsy, both in props in most theatricalprofessions, but certainly I know with production managers, it was like, you can't be
serious all the time.
Like people will stop listening to you if you're serious, no, all the time.
(41:51):
Like, you know, that kind of thing.
uh Jim, I have like a speed round question for you that I want to kind of get your take onbefore we move into the end of the episode here.
But.
I'm curious, you've worked in so many different types of props.
You've given us the list a couple of different times with museums and film and all thisother stuff.
I'm wondering if I'm a person and I'm like, Jim, I'm really into props, but I don't knowwhich genre or path to go down.
(42:18):
Can you give me a quick, if you're into X, go to museums or check out museums, or ifyou're into Y, go into film, or if you hate long hours, don't do this at all, or whatever.
uh But I'm curious to hear your take on how to match people with industry needs.
a lot of questions.
guess the big thing is to narrow down what kind of props you want to do, how broad a brushdo you want to paint with?
(42:47):
If it's a big broad brush, stuff like opera and ah stuff that is big and presentational,huge musical theater productions and stuff, that is
probably the broadest brush.
The finest brush you're going to use is either, in my opinion, and it'll differ from propperson to prop person, I'm sure, but in my opinion, the finest brush you're going to use
(43:19):
is either in theater, where the audience can be.
I've worked in a lot of theaters.
I work in two theaters right now where if a guy in the second row has a cold, he's goingto sneeze on an actor.
Yeah.
And if that newspaper doesn't say what it's supposed to say, the people in the first fourrows are going to know that.
(43:42):
But that's if you can deal emotionally with disposable art.
Because a play is going to close and you're either going to put the stuff back in stock,give the stuff away, or donate it, or in some unfortunate cases just throw it in the
dumpster.
And you've to be emotionally equipped to deal with that.
(44:05):
If you like things enough so that they become precious, museum work is great.
um One of my favorite museum jobs I ever did was for the Cleveland Health EducationMuseum.
And like all museums of that sort, they have a kind of uh a centerpiece to a theme thatthey have exhibits on.
(44:28):
And their theme was uh emergency trauma medical care.
They decided that the centerpiece was going to be a recreation of the set of mash.
Okay.
Yeah.
It was right after MASH came down.
ah They contacted the Smithsonian who got all of MASH and the Smithsonian said, yeah,sure, we'll help you out.
(44:54):
And so they proceeded.
And when they got right up to it, the Smithsonian said, wow, there's been so much uhdemand for this that we can't give you everything that we were going to give you.
What they did give us was oh
The signpost, uh Soul, Toledo, Akron, all that, which was the one from the movierepainted, by the way.
(45:22):
The door to the swamp, which was also the one from the movie, because if you got it in theright light, you could see the original MASH logo underneath the new MASH logo.
And Claire, I got to assemble the still.
The still in Hawkeye's...
Yeah.
yeah, yeah, yeah.
(45:43):
The whole thing, I got to put the still together.
was, How?
It was scary.
Yeah, I was like, I can't decide if that's like fun or if that's like a lot of pressure.
Yeah, it's like, here's the bones of St.
Thomas Aquinas.
See what you can do with these.
Yeah, good luck.
Well, because those objects are precious.
(46:05):
mean, you just like does museum vibes.
If you exhibit one of George Washington's ivory toothpicks, they send out a curator tolook over what you've done.
I spent three solid weeks dressing that thing.
I spent an entire week just in and around the tent that was the swamp.
(46:29):
I had production photos.
I had crane shots of the.
the tents with the sides pulled out for photography and stuff.
And I was kind of a MASH fanatic.
That was my generation.
We were avoiding Uncle Sam's all expenses paid vacation to Southeast Asia when that was onTV.
And so this is I had tremendous reverence and a personal attachment to this.
(46:54):
And the entrance to the main exhibit hall had a balcony that you then walk down the steps.
And they sent me, the display coordinator said, uh the Smithsonian curator's here.
You go get her.
(47:14):
uh
No pressure.
in.
That would happen to you.
And ah we went out, we stood on the balcony for a while.
She looked at everything, the O.R.
was there, and the little courtyard and all that.
And she looked at it, and she looked at me and she said, did we send you everything?
(47:38):
The highest co-
It was wonderful.
And I saw the ah display coordinator for the museum taking the press tour around.
And he brought them to the swamp.
And he said, OK, before I let you guys in here, I want to tell you, I watched a guyarrange the straw on the floor in there for three hours.
(48:06):
Do you know what I'm saying to you?
And they said, And they were very, very careful.
my god, ah could truly listen to you tell stories about your life Forever I have I twoquestions left for you We are definitely doing a part two because I want to have Margaret
(48:27):
on separately And then I also want to put Margaret and Jim together for the maximum chaosah The I want to hear how will you tell us a parent?
want to hear from your perspective of a parent
what you would tell other parents or caregivers of young people with career aspirations inthe arts.
(48:51):
A solid foundation in the liberal arts, for one thing.
um I understand the value of a conservatory approach, but for many people who do not havea broad background in the other parts of knowledge in general, that will help to inform
(49:12):
the decisions and choices you make as an artist and as a theater professional.
The conservatory produces a form of tunnel vision sometimes.
So if you don't come into the conservatory knowing literature, knowing art, um in the caseof people in technical theater, having a handle on math and engineering and trigonometry
(49:43):
and geometry.
Did I think that I was ever going to know anything about physics?
No, I'm self-taught.
And so getting a good background in that stuff is super important.
And then just supporting your kid in whatever they decide to do.
When my daughter, she got a full ride to Vassar.
(50:07):
Nice.
OK.
Well, she's frighteningly smart, for starts.
early in high school, I told her, look, if you want to go to a decent college or a reallygood college,
You're going to have to be a scholarship kid because considering what your mom and I dofor a living, hello, cosmetology.
(50:31):
And so she worked her ass off and she went into Vassar for undergrad.
She was going to be an anthropologist, a cultural anthropologist, which is what my sisterhas her doctorate in, as a matter of fact.
And when I came to pick her up from the end of her freshman year and
stuff her entire life in my work van.
(50:55):
We went to this little Greek place in Poughkeepsie that we liked and we sat down and shebroke it to me that she was changing majors and she was going into the arts.
She was going into film.
And she thought I was going to come down on her for it.
(51:18):
And I told her, honey,
I am the last person in the world qualified to give career advice.
Yeah.
Is that what you want to do?
Then I know you, you're going to do well at it.
What can I do to help?
that that's what we
(51:39):
More parents like that more
More parents like that.
Our last question is hopefully an easy one.
uh What media are you consuming right now that is exciting or inspiring to you?
That could be book, movie, podcast, TV show, music, what have you, but something that'sinteresting or inspiring or a great brain rot, depending on your vibe.
(52:04):
I've always got a bunch of stuff going.
think you may remember, Claire, that live Chicago blues is my music of choice.
I thought that.
And I've just weaned myself off of a Howlin' Wolf bender that lasts for a couple of weeks.
(52:27):
Oh my gosh.
I don't listen to lot of podcasts because I don't put headphones in when I'm in the shop.
just feel like I need to be in touch with that stuff.
Totally.
uh I'll watch any movie for any reason, pretty much.
(52:49):
And I've also been, uh you know, I can never remember TV show names.
ah So that's a little bit of a Well, other than MASH.
MASH is incredible.
Bad Sisters was great.
We went through that.
There's something else that we started just recently that I cannot for the life of meremember the name of.
(53:11):
ah It'll take me until we're done with the damn series.
I'm text in two days.
Slow Horses is pretty wonderful.
Love watching him work.
God, yeah.
Awesome.
And I'm uh doing a lot of theater.
And there's the puppy.
Puppy.
(53:31):
uh Yeah, well, now I know how my mom felt when I was two.
uh Except he doesn't have as much impulse control as I did, which is kind of dangerous.
because I'm not good at impulse control now.
uh But we have a five-month-old corgi who is like a little fur missile ah with giant ears.
(54:03):
he's murderously smart and manipulative.
I'm training up pretty good.
All right.
I like also please send me a photo of this dog when you get a chance because he may or maynot become our episode.
Depending, but.
(54:23):
His name is Ralph.
Oh, good.
I think it's important, we named him after my wife's late father.
And I think it's important that a dog be able to pronounce his own name.
oh My mom says dogs and children should all have one syllable names because it's easiestto get them to grasp it.
(54:45):
Yeah, well, my son's name is Jack and I think until she was probably three, my daughterthought her name was Jesus Emma.
oh Lord well on that note on that note Jim Do you have any parting thoughts pieces ofadvice close out close out wishes for our listeners that you'd like to share?
(55:14):
See live theaters, support the arts, compliment the people backstage so they know you knowthat they exist, and appreciate the contribution that everybody starting with the people
who unlock the doors have to the theatrical process because it is one big ass group effortand none of it would work without every last piece work.
(55:40):
Absolutely.
and tip your prop people.
Hahaha
We accept scoc.
Jim it was so incredible to get to sit down and talk to you.
We definitely have to work I'm looking forward to part two and The chaos I've beenpromised and we'll see you soon
Bye.
Living in the Arts is hosted by Laura Scales with original music and editing by JasonDurand.
(56:05):
It is produced and co-hosted by Claire Heldt and our podcast coordinator is Colin Shy.
For more information about anything our guest mentioned, be sure to check out the shownotes.
Living in the Arts is made possible by listeners like you.
Don't forget to follow, rate, review, or share an episode that excites you.
To learn more and support Living in the Arts, please visit livingartsdetroit.org.
(56:25):
Thank you so much for joining us and so much for listening.
April for the Arts was a success!
Thank you so much to everyone who participated, watched a stream, donated, hung out, andthe streamers themselves.
(56:45):
Because of all of you, we raised over $4,700 for Living Arts.
That covers rent for one month in the space, and we are so incredibly grateful for allthat anyone who has been involved has done.
We obviously still always appreciate the support, so feel free to check outlivingartsdetroit.org slash donate if you're interested in setting up a single or
(57:05):
recurring monthly donation.
But either way, thank you all so much again.
Bye.
Hello, I'm Laura Scales, a dedicated arts facilitator, career counselor, and the CEO ofLiving Arts Detroit.
Join us as we chat with both experienced and emerging artistic professionals who haveignited their creativity and shaped their careers to thrive while living in the arts.
Today's interview is with Jim Guy, legendary props wizard.
Jim has propped an estimated 600 plays, musicals, and operas.
(00:25):
His work has appeared on and off Broadway, on tour, in print, on television, in museums,and on stage.
Jim was properties director at Milwaukee Repertory Theater for 24 seasons, and in hisheavier quotes here, retirement, he now freelances, teaches, consults, and serves as
membership co-chair and past president of the Society of Props Managers.
We're going to learn about his upcoming book, Firearms Safety for Stage, finding funperspective and personal connection in the workplace, and stealing yourself to rejection.
(00:52):
One takeaway I can offer you already, ask yourself, what did I learn from this?
For more, stay tuned.
Hello!
Welcome to an episode of Living in the Arts.
We have an incredible guest with us, Jim Guy.
I'm gonna let Jim introduce himself in just a moment, but first, full disclosure, I haveknown Jim for a number of years as we used to work together at a theater, but Jim has been
(01:16):
doing props for 45 years.
That is so wild to me.
To commit yourself to one art form for multiple decades of your life.
He has served as a teacher, a freelancer, a staff member.
He is a consultant.
He is the membership co-chair and past president of the Society of Props Masters.
(01:36):
I think lovingly referred to as SPAM, but also maybe SPM, not sure, either We thought itwas SPAM.
And he's currently working on a book, Firearms Safety for Stage, a Comprehensive Guide forProp People, Stage Managers, Production Crews, and Technical Staff.
Jim is also the person who taught me how to use firearms safely.
(02:00):
So yeah, Jim, would love firearms in plays.
In your plays.
don't know how to use firearms in life and I have no interest in it really.
But Jim, introduce yourself to the listeners please.
I'm Jim Guy.
I'm a career prop person or repeat offender prop person.
I've been doing this since I started at the Cleveland Playhouse.
(02:24):
ah And professionally, I was doing it just for grins before that in 1980.
And I'm beginning to recognize patterns.
ah I teach.
ran the MFA program at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
which remains a wonderful MFA program for prop people in prop management and design.
(02:49):
I teach my firearm safety for stage class, a full day class all over the country totheaters and uh opera companies and professional and student organizations.
And I brew my own beer and I have a puppy.
And my wife's the best damn soft props person on the planet.
(03:12):
Oh, nice.
You are a legend, truly.
That was one of the highlights was getting to meet you on my very random, I wonder ifMilwaukee rep will let us in.
And they did and I got to chat with you.
But let's dive into the questions.
Good thing, bad thing.
Before we dive into any questions about your career, hang on.
(03:34):
like to do, Laura is actually the person who likes to do this at living arts meetings.
I do.
We do a thing called good thing, bad thing, where uh if it's just like a table setting,how are you doing today?
What is a good thing in your life?
What is a bad thing?
It could be about work.
It could not be about work.
It could be about life.
The rules are you may not.
have only bad things.
(03:55):
You must have at least one good thing.
You can have two good things, but you can't have two bad things.
So for me, I'm gonna start with my bad thing is I recently learned that a lot of myfriends are shoe wearers in the home.
And this feels catastrophic to me personally.
(04:16):
So that is my bad thing.
My good thing.
Laura's laughing because she's one of the people who I recently met in her own home, butshe came into my home with her shoes.
It was catastrophic.
Several friends of mine did it all within like one weekend of visiting and I was like, whoraised you?
It was very dramatic.
It was very Midwestern sensitivities of me that I didn't know I felt so strongly about.
(04:37):
And my good thing is that my friends still love me after I had a meltdown about theirshoes.
So it was wild.
was I turned 30 and was like, I won't stand for this.
So sudden.
Yes.
ah My good thing is that we're on this call.
I'm really excited to kind of jump in and learn more as a stage and production manager foralmost my entire career.
(05:05):
Firearm safety was always the one that made me go, so it's so exciting that there arepeople actually out there.
Teaching, because I have, I'm sure everyone who's worked in the industry has a horrorstory about firearms going wrong.
ah I'll start with two bad things.
One break in the rules
(05:25):
Yeah, how about that, huh?
Get it out of the way, Claire.
Hey, yeah, as long as you end it with a good thing, we're good.
oh
sure.
Well, I actually had to search for the bad things, but you guys inspired me, so thank you.
uh One is the political climate in the country today, uh over which I am very concerned.
(05:51):
I'm fairly politically active.
And wow, is this hard to watch, much less live through.
Yeah.
And the other is that I haven't taken my shoes off since 1979.
I'm so sorry.
ah I sleep in them.
ah I swim in them.
It just happens.
(06:14):
Yeah, I don't know.
This is because Jim is a magical figure, like I'm not certain Jim is like a human, likeJim just like appears like when we were working together, I felt like I would turn a
quarter and Jim would just like be there.
So it's not lost on me that like maybe you just exist in full form with shoes.
m
Well, that would keep me from not wearing shoes in the shop.
(06:38):
Oh!
There you go.
Okay.
And, geez, there's so much good stuff going on right now.
um I finished the outline for my book, which was like pulling my own teeth.
And the editor that's handling it wrote back and said that she really likes it, andthey're putting it out for peer review before I actually start smearing my brains on
(07:05):
paper.
Cool!
Yeah.
And I'm going to be presenting the full course at USITT on their Wednesday, what aprofessional development you got to pay to get into this one workshop.
And I have three plays and an opera coming up in the spring, all working with people Ireally enjoy working with on projects I'm excited for.
(07:36):
And one of them is going to be
So much fun to do set decoration on.
And set decoration is my true passion.
And I've already picked up three shows for next season.
Dear listener, Jim also told me he was retired.
LOL.
(07:59):
Yes,
It's the worst retirement ever.
I did not retire from doing what I love doing with people that I like doing it with onprojects that I think are worthwhile.
I retired from work in 15, 16 overlapping shows a year and often feeling like I had nothad the time to focus my creative energies on a show that really deserved it because I had
(08:29):
two other shows.
attached to my ankles or breathing down my back.
And ah I'm still getting to work with the same people that I always loved working with.
And I'm being treated like a designer, because I believe that I am.
Especially if you're doing set decoration pieces and things like that like there is deeplevel of design that goes well
(08:52):
I mean, you can get me going on this later, but the contribution that props can make to aplay getting its message across, not just being pretty or being gritty or whatever, but
the contribution that props can make to actually getting the point across and helping theactors and the director and the designer to get what they want out of the play, that's the
(09:18):
most fun.
That's the coolest.
Now, I'm gonna ask a question that I just wanna make sure we table set.
For folks who are less familiar with theater and we talk about you being a props person,what, how do you define being a props person?
You just set me up for that, didn't you, Claire?
I did.
OK, well sing along if you know the words.
(09:39):
The Props 101 definition.
This is what I used to tell my sainted grandmother every year when I'd come home forThanksgiving.
And she'd say, what is it you do again?
Props 101.
If you have just built a house from the ground up, so
(10:00):
All you've got is a raw house.
You've got floors and ceilings and walls and doors and windows and that's pretty much it.
That's the set.
It is the structure within which the play takes place.
Everything that goes into that space to make it your house in this time under thesecircumstances.
(10:22):
So the floor coverings, the light fixtures, the switch plates, the rugs...
uh the kind of light bulb you use, the furniture, the luggage that you carry in when youmove in, everything in your pockets, everything in the luggage that you do not wear,
(10:43):
because if you wear it, it's a costume, everything that you eat, drink, read, smoke,break, shoot, burn, and the matches you light it with, that's the props.
It's the stuff that helps to tell the story without words so that somebody doesn't have towalk in and say, here I am in a slightly run-down English manor in roughly 1952 outside of
(11:10):
London during a snowstorm.
You can tell everything about that just by the first person making their first entranceand sometimes without even people on stage, saving the actors a great deal of exposition
and
The props is what supports the script visually.
(11:31):
It supports the actors' performances physically.
And it helps to keep, if done right, helps to keep the audience's head in the game.
That is, theater audiences are smart people.
Except for that a**hole in the second row who is texting.
(11:54):
He's not smart.
m
everybody else in the theater, they're a smart group and everybody knows something aboutsomething.
So you've got an expert on something in every house that you play to.
And if the woman in the mousetrap, ah which I just did last season again for Next ActTheater was a riot and really pretty.
(12:23):
Come for the drapes, stay for the furniture.
Oh, Margaret killed those drapes.
Anyhow, ah she walks on, she picks up the phone, and she punches a number in, and shestarts to talk.
And yeah, are you listening to that conversation?
Or are you listening to the little voice in your head saying, what the hell, they didn'thave push button phones in 1952?
(12:51):
Yeah, Jim saw me, for the listeners, Jim saw me make kind of a skeptical face as he said,push buttons.
And I was like, wait a minute.
Yeah.
But you see it happen.
And theater's compressed reality.
Nobody just comes out and says stuff to say stuff.
Every word, every sentence has been carefully crafted by both the director, by both theplaywright and director, and then through the actors to make that work for the play, to
(13:23):
get the story across, to get the mood across, to help set up for something else.
And if you miss four or five words, who knows what part of that story is not going to landwith you.
So it's kind of up to me.
One of the best introductions I ever got from a director was recently the lovely EliseEdelman was introducing me to her cast and said that they should learn to talk to me about
(13:53):
the things that we need to talk about, because when they hire me
they get not only a person who gives them stuff, but kind of a dramaturg and a historian.
Some designers used to call me uh the History Channel.
I got a pretty good handle on that sort of thing.
After 40 years of making props for how many different plays and how many different timeperiods and everything else, I'm glad to hear you've retained some of it.
(14:21):
Yeah, well, over 600 plays and operas and pieces of musical theater, to the best of myknowledge.
amazing.
And that's rough.
And that was from three years ago.
And so I've logged a few more since then.
Wow, I can't, we haven't even started with our like actual list of questions for you.
(14:44):
There are two things that we like to kind of get at with people.
One is their path that led them into choosing this thing.
And the other is sort of, was there a moment that you realized that you were in it for thelong haul?
Yes.
What was that moment?
oh And if you want to expand on your path a little bit, would love to hear that as well.
(15:07):
You oh
I have always been a visual thinker.
My sister, my sister the doctor, the PhD, she remembers everything that she has ever read.
Like, no kidding.
It's scary.
(15:29):
I think so, yeah.
I remember almost everything I've ever seen.
I have a photographic memory.
And I never thought of it that way until it was pointed out to me by a production managera few years ago.
But I kind of do.
I remember when I was like 10 years old rearranging the model cars on the shelves in myroom and planning to repaint that one because it didn't work with the wall color and stuff
(15:56):
like that.
I was an odd child.
And I started it well.
This is like my third or fourth career.
ah was right out of undergrad.
I was a fine arts reference librarian who did theater at night.
And then it became clear that I was dragging my ass in there and doing a he's practicallyawake job of being a librarian ah because I was spending so much time doing theater.
(16:31):
So I went to grad school.
And I decided to double major.
ah I worked on my master's in library science and my MA because they did not have an MFAat that time in stage management at Kent State University.
And when I got to my third year, realized, I don't really, I'm not emotionally equipped tosit behind a desk.
(17:01):
I'm a little more tight.
I cannot imagine you as a stage manager, like a career stage manager.
I was a pretty good stage manager, but the librarianship was the problem.
I loved doing the research.
I loved helping people define the fine points of things and all that.
But you spent so much time sitting and going through cards and so I mean, this ispre-computer library world to card catalog.
(17:27):
yeah.
The Dewey Decibel system is my Bible anyway.
So I.
went into, I decided, yeah, I just finished the master's in stage management.
I started it, I got accepted for a PhD, and then I realized weeks before starting the PhD,I'm going into the 20th grade.
(17:53):
And if I do this, it is more than likely I will spend the rest of my life talking abouttheater, but not necessarily doing it.
So I quit just weeks shy of starting my PhD.
And uh I got a job.
(18:13):
I moved back to my hometown, Cleveland, Ohio.
And through friends, former students of mine, actually, uh I found a job that I thoughtwas going to be a placeholder, working in the box office at the Cleveland Playhouse, the
place where I saw my very first professionally produced play.
So it was kind of a thrill.
(18:33):
And I worked in the box office for about a year.
And then they tried to get me into management and make me the subscription director.
And I've kind of never joined a club that I haven't ended up president of.
And the business manager told me, know, there'll be a substantial bump in salary.
(18:57):
And I told him, that's great for the two weeks before I throw myself off the roof.
Yeah.
So they decided to move me to another department.
They moved me into the marketing department to do brochure design because I did graphicdesign and uh proofreading and writing copy and doing display work, know, shop windows
(19:19):
downtown oh to advertise the shows.
during that time, and that was kind of fun, that was a good time.
And I got to get up and move around.
And oh during that time,
I was stage managing at a few other small venues in Cleveland.
And uh I believe, and I made it clear at the Playhouse, I was looking for an in to theproduction department.
(19:44):
So they knew that.
And I was doing a production, oh I wasn't stage managing because they found out I had ahand with props.
So on this show, I was the prop master and prop run person.
for a production of The Iceman Cometh.
(20:05):
Four acts and every syllable of The Iceman Cometh.
Four hours of Eugene O'Neill presented up close and personal in a black box.
And it was a great production.
And God, it was fun to dress because that nasty bar and
(20:29):
the saddest birthday party on the planet in Act 3.
I mean, was just, it was so much fun to do.
And one night I am uh emptying out fake whiskey out of relabeled bottles and stuff likethat.
And somebody comes downstairs and said, hey, Jim, uh the artistic director from theCleveland Playhouse, Richard Oberlin, and their production manager, Jim Irwin, just saw
(20:58):
the show.
And they want you to meet them upstairs in the bar for a drink.
Little knowing that that is where I spent Act Four.
So my seat was still warm.
And I went up and they offered me the job of prop carpenter at the Cleveland Playhouse.
(21:19):
So I did that for a while, but I was still stage managing on the side.
And uh for a summer gig,
I landed a job working for a guy that I had gone to high school with who had been HalPrince's assistant on the original production of Sweeney Todd.
(21:41):
Sky and I didn't really like each other very much, but we were both good at what we didand, you know, work's work.
Sometimes that's what you need, effect.
they hired me to stage manage ah a production, a scaled down production of Sweeney Toddthat they were developing with the Prince Organization to go into smaller theaters.
(22:07):
They called it the Teeny Sweeney Project.
it was such a great show.
And I had seen the original on Broadway and I'm not a musicals guy.
But ah a friend of mine said, no, you got to see this.
And I did.
And it is still to this day one of my favorite things I've ever seen.
(22:27):
ah
Yeah, I big prop show also.
yeah, but mean just...
And it's an opera and it's huge and it's so intertwined and all sorts of other artsystuff.
oh so we're doing this and uh our prop guy was way behind on getting us decent things.
(22:53):
So I was using the Cleveland Playhouse's prop shop during the day.
to start propping the show with the crucial stuff.
And I brought this guy in about 10 days before we moved into the theater for tech.
And I said, hey, you got to tell me how the barbershop murders work because I can't justbreak this to my guys on tech or we're going to burn a day and a half getting that right.
(23:21):
I don't have it in that space.
And the guy said, well, I was going to start on the blood stuff this week.
oh And I said, yeah, I think you're going to start as a greeter at Kmart this week becauseyou're useless.
And I went to the producer and I said, look, nobody knows this show better than me exceptthe director.
(23:51):
Because of our wacky rehearsal schedule, I've got my days mostly free.
I believe that I can prop Sweeney Todd in 10 days and get it on stage for openingcomplete.
Ho!
And they said, what's your figure?
(24:11):
And I gave them a figure and they said, here.
And I got to stage manage a show that was the most fun of any show I ever rehearsed, uhteched or called at the same time that I got to prop it.
And props won.
(24:32):
I had the best time of my life.
And I was so completely prepared to prop it because of my experience as a stage managerand frankly because of my dramaturgical background as a fine arts reference librarian.
I used to tell my students that if you put a fine arts reference librarian and a stagemanager in a can and you shake it real hard, what spills out on the table is a prop
(24:59):
person.
Which makes absolute sense.
oh
it played to all of my strengths and all the things that I like doing and it also plays tothe fact that I have the attention span of a gnat because no two days are alike and I mean
you could do four hamlets in one season and not...
(25:22):
Yeah.
I still get to build those two things together and shook them up and you didn't like to dothings with your hands, I guess you kind of get a dramaturge.
But it makes sense that if the person actually wants to move about the cabin during theday, you definitely get a props person.
And as it turns out, uh I'm an inventor and a designer and a mechanic and uh to someextent an engineer and I get to make it pretty.
(25:53):
Yeah.
And I got to work with the best, smartest people ah that I have ever worked with.
The guy who was my mentor, the late great Richard Gould had
the best attitude toward work that I have ever seen.
To the day that he died, I would walk on fire to work with Richard.
(26:16):
And I still have little, what would Richard do moments when I'm stuck on stuff?
I feel like I am the second generation of the Richard Gould University of Props.
And now there is a third and there's a fourth coming through one of my students.
And it's all about our approach to doing the play and managing humanely.
(26:42):
And that is, I believe, one of the most important parts.
what I see lacking and diminishing in many producing organizations because of the strugglejust to keep the damn doors open.
And I don't think
(27:02):
if we're gonna produce the quality of art that we should be producing and keep people onthe job long enough to get really good at what they do and to develop a shorthand with
their coworkers so that it's easier to do the job.
If it becomes a revolving door of people who go in enthusiastic and then get fed throughthe people mill, think theater's gonna lose a lot.
(27:31):
Yeah.
I think it has, unfortunately.
has, yeah.
I'm curious, so we love to ask the question of what strategies have you developed to takecare of yourself, but also I'm curious to hear you talk about that philosophy in what you
instill in your students as well.
So the idea of what are you doing for self-care, but also what are you encouraging thoseyou're teaching to do as they're looking at this industry?
(27:59):
I failed self-care for several decades.
it, well, you know, it's just how it was, really, you know?
Yeah.
If you had to, then you did.
And I will admit that probably it took, and my wife is an artist in her own right, as wellas being a theater artist.
(28:24):
And we are both pretty much workaholics.
And it actually took having kids to kind of snap us out of it and realize, my God, there'sother people out there.
Yes.
And I was never really good at self-care.
(28:47):
I think it actually took the pandemic to force me to step back and
see what I was doing to myself.
And I was my own worst enemy in a lot of ways for a lot of years.
And I was pretty angry.
(29:08):
A lot of the time, I think that the pandemic really gave me perspective.
Now, I have always tried to get my students and my young employees
not to wring themselves out like I did and like so many people of my generation did.
(29:29):
And I think in part, and this is just right off the top of my head, my contemporaries andI, in many ways, felt a much more personal connection to the people we worked with and the
organizations that we worked for and made art with.
(29:50):
And that was fostered by those organizations.
And now you get a lot of, theater's not family.
And you know, it used to be, it really did.
And if you did it right, it really did.
It wasn't just the art factory.
It's where people experience joy and creativity together.
(30:12):
wonder too, with the, cause I, being of a different generation of theatrical professional,I have worked at places I have loved and I have felt really like personally connected to.
And I've definitely been the girl who's like, stop calling me your family.
Like if another executive director says that we're family, I'm like, no.
Usually when that's happening, it's someone who's like, we're family, read.
(30:37):
So you should do things for free and for more and for more than I ask of you.
Whereas I feel like the connections you are talking about, Jim, are like more like ahealthy relationship rather than like the top family relationship.
I still have, I'm still in touch with people from almost all of my shops over 40 years.
(30:59):
people who have worked for me here in Milwaukee, they still come over to dinner.
We still meet for drinks.
We still go to ball games together.
Every once in a while we'll see a play.
It's a...
It's a different thing.
It really is.
And Claire, also, there's the people who keep telling you how easy they are to work for orwork with.
(31:27):
Yeah, that's a red flag on the playwright.
I worked with one director here in town.
Loved the guy.
Known him since he was a kid.
uh A good artist maybe thinks himself into a hole sometimes.
But the more times that he tells you how easy he is to work with, the more you should belooking over your shoulder.
(31:54):
you just don't smell the train coming.
Yeah.
It's true.
It's true.
I'm wondering as an educator and, you know, a theater professional to your degree, whatadvice do you have for people who are interested in getting, like, for people who are
(32:16):
interested in getting to where you are now and, you know, becoming the next gym guy, ifyou will, but also like for people who just found out about props through this episode.
Like what is your advice for them?
ah You're never gonna get rich.
ah Well, unless you go into the commercial end of it, ah anybody who can do theater propscan do props in any other.
(32:50):
Like I said before, I've done a little TV, I've done a couple of award shows, I've done atiny bit of film work, I've done a lot of
print stuff.
I've done museum work.
I've done display work.
ah I wouldn't advise teaching unless you have done the job because there's so much more todo in props than just knowing what the cure time is on something or which end of the glue
(33:25):
gun is warmer.
So I would say if you're gonna teach it, do it first.
Because you do not want...
And you gotta keep growing.
You've gotta keep learning things.
I knew somebody, uh a long time prop person, who I knew they were pretty much done withprops because they said, you know, can I use you as a reference?
(33:48):
Because I'm gonna start looking around.
Because I already know everything I need to know ah about props.
So I'm gonna look for some new challenges.
And I had been at it at that time for like 25 years or so.
And I thought, jeez, I wish I knew everything I had to know about bronze.
I guess they were just satisfied with their knowledge.
(34:09):
They were like, okay, no more.
Yeah, yeah, and nobody could tell them anything, which was unfortunate.
It's usually the kind of person who doesn't have any more to learn is the kind of personunwilling to learn more.
Yeah, but every season that I keep propping shows, I feel like I get to be a better propperson.
(34:32):
Especially young people, admitting what you don't know is a lot more important thantelling people what you do know.
Mm-hmm.
And you may think you know all about a subject.
Talk to somebody else who also knows something about the subject.
I go to firearm safety workshops presented by other people in organizations on a regularbasis when I can find them.
(34:58):
There aren't many anymore, unfortunately.
I always, you know, at least I'll learn either the yeses or the nos of teaching a firearmsafety for stage workshop.
if nothing else.
You can always keep learning.
You can always keep expanding your knowledge.
(35:19):
And it's not always about finding an easier way to do it.
It's about finding a better way to do it.
Done is not beautiful.
Beautiful is done.
And if it takes extra time and extra effort, then you just do that.
which is in direct opposition on the show.
(35:41):
typically say Dunn, sometimes Dunn is beautiful.
Because sometimes Dunn has to be beautiful.
But you're right.
There's another side to that coin, especially if you're putting something on stage.
You need to allocate your resources, your time, your money, your creative possibilities,and your staff the right way.
(36:01):
And not spend a lot of time on things that will not have as great an impact orcontribution on the produced work.
Well, and props has to have a lot to do with prioritizing things.
Because there's gotta be, I mean, if you're dressing a set, if you have key props,whatever it is, like, you only have so much time.
(36:22):
Another important part is to talk to the actors.
I know a lot of young prop people who don't talk to the actors.
And for me that does not work.
Here's another, uh Clark can sing this with me too.
Actors have the hardest job in theater.
(36:42):
Look at what these guys have to do.
They've to get up there.
They're speaking someone else's words in someone else's accent.
wearing someone else's clothes, shoes, and hair.
They're walking around going from place to place in a manner and a time that someone elsetold them to do.
(37:08):
They have to be on a particular spot at a particular moment.
Or what
could have been beautiful human chess can turn into human and technical pinball.
And then you're going to lead between 50 and 1,000 people into the room who paid a lot ofmoney to sit down and judge them right in front of them.
(37:41):
I'm not up for that kind of thing.
I couldn't do it.
I tried doing it.
uh No.
These guys...
Our job is to help them do their job.
I'm the only one who pays to see the furniture.
Aside from that, everybody is coming to be taken away by a story.
(38:01):
And if the actor isn't taken away by the story, then they're not taking anybody with them.
And so it is my job to help make them feel like they are in the place they're supposed tobe, handling the things they would be handling.
And these things should reflect who they are and what they are in this play and in thelife offstage of this character as well.
(38:29):
Backstory.
So talking to an actor about their backstory or coming to them and asking them, would yourcharacter Lloyd, would Lloyd have this or is Lloyd more of a this thing man?
Does Lloyd have his cell phone in his front pocket?
(38:50):
Does he even have a phone?
What does his wallet look like?
Does he sit on it?
Does he throw it out into the like, yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
that's, I think that's a large part of it is getting involved very deeply in the texts andthe performances and to steel yourself for rejection because it could be the best, most
(39:16):
beautiful thing that took you weeks to shop or days and days and days to build.
And it could be exactly what it's supposed to be.
and you get it into rehearsal.
And if it's not helping the play or the actor, it's not a bad prop, it's just not thecorrect prop.
And you're going to have to throw it overboard and start over.
(39:39):
My closest, dearest friend, uh Miss Jenny Pinson, is a prop master.
early in both of our careers, she had to make an octopus maypole for one of our firstprofessional productions.
And it was stunning.
It was beautiful.
And she had to do the physics of how are all these characters gonna do this for Seussicalthe musical.
(40:02):
And she was up two overnights, just her and a glue gun and a very drafty.
Drafty studio and they and we had to cut it and I was like, please like oh Yeah, it's likeI will tell her and she just But we kept it so we took it off the the maypole and kept the
the octopus head and legs
(40:25):
You have to ask yourself, what did I learn from this?
And how will this be good for things that I build in the future?
And it doesn't hurt to have a sense of humor about it.
In my later years, I was at the Cleveland Playhouse for about 10 years.
(40:46):
In my later years at the Cleveland Playhouse, we had a little extra space because we tookover another building and we opened the Cut Prop Museum.
We had little title cards about what the prop was and who built it and what play it wasfor and how long it lasted on stage.
(41:07):
Yeah, if you're not having a little fun at work, especially in a nonprofit, you're notgetting paid enough.
You better be having a little fun.
If it's not fun, you just shouldn't be doing it.
know couple of prop masters who have no apparent sense of humor or get no real joy out ofwhat they're doing.
(41:30):
And I feel bad for them and I feel bad for the people that work for them and with them.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think a uh carefully curated sense of whimsy, both in props in most theatricalprofessions, but certainly I know with production managers, it was like, you can't be
serious all the time.
Like people will stop listening to you if you're serious, no, all the time.
(41:51):
Like, you know, that kind of thing.
uh Jim, I have like a speed round question for you that I want to kind of get your take onbefore we move into the end of the episode here.
But.
I'm curious, you've worked in so many different types of props.
You've given us the list a couple of different times with museums and film and all thisother stuff.
I'm wondering if I'm a person and I'm like, Jim, I'm really into props, but I don't knowwhich genre or path to go down.
(42:18):
Can you give me a quick, if you're into X, go to museums or check out museums, or ifyou're into Y, go into film, or if you hate long hours, don't do this at all, or whatever.
uh But I'm curious to hear your take on how to match people with industry needs.
a lot of questions.
guess the big thing is to narrow down what kind of props you want to do, how broad a brushdo you want to paint with?
(42:47):
If it's a big broad brush, stuff like opera and ah stuff that is big and presentational,huge musical theater productions and stuff, that is
probably the broadest brush.
The finest brush you're going to use is either, in my opinion, and it'll differ from propperson to prop person, I'm sure, but in my opinion, the finest brush you're going to use
(43:19):
is either in theater, where the audience can be.
I've worked in a lot of theaters.
I work in two theaters right now where if a guy in the second row has a cold, he's goingto sneeze on an actor.
Yeah.
And if that newspaper doesn't say what it's supposed to say, the people in the first fourrows are going to know that.
(43:42):
But that's if you can deal emotionally with disposable art.
Because a play is going to close and you're either going to put the stuff back in stock,give the stuff away, or donate it, or in some unfortunate cases just throw it in the
dumpster.
And you've to be emotionally equipped to deal with that.
(44:05):
If you like things enough so that they become precious, museum work is great.
um One of my favorite museum jobs I ever did was for the Cleveland Health EducationMuseum.
And like all museums of that sort, they have a kind of uh a centerpiece to a theme thatthey have exhibits on.
(44:28):
And their theme was uh emergency trauma medical care.
They decided that the centerpiece was going to be a recreation of the set of mash.
Okay.
Yeah.
It was right after MASH came down.
ah They contacted the Smithsonian who got all of MASH and the Smithsonian said, yeah,sure, we'll help you out.
(44:54):
And so they proceeded.
And when they got right up to it, the Smithsonian said, wow, there's been so much uhdemand for this that we can't give you everything that we were going to give you.
What they did give us was oh
The signpost, uh Soul, Toledo, Akron, all that, which was the one from the movierepainted, by the way.
(45:22):
The door to the swamp, which was also the one from the movie, because if you got it in theright light, you could see the original MASH logo underneath the new MASH logo.
And Claire, I got to assemble the still.
The still in Hawkeye's...
Yeah.
yeah, yeah, yeah.
(45:43):
The whole thing, I got to put the still together.
was, How?
It was scary.
Yeah, I was like, I can't decide if that's like fun or if that's like a lot of pressure.
Yeah, it's like, here's the bones of St.
Thomas Aquinas.
See what you can do with these.
Yeah, good luck.
Well, because those objects are precious.
(46:05):
mean, you just like does museum vibes.
If you exhibit one of George Washington's ivory toothpicks, they send out a curator tolook over what you've done.
I spent three solid weeks dressing that thing.
I spent an entire week just in and around the tent that was the swamp.
(46:29):
I had production photos.
I had crane shots of the.
the tents with the sides pulled out for photography and stuff.
And I was kind of a MASH fanatic.
That was my generation.
We were avoiding Uncle Sam's all expenses paid vacation to Southeast Asia when that was onTV.
And so this is I had tremendous reverence and a personal attachment to this.
(46:54):
And the entrance to the main exhibit hall had a balcony that you then walk down the steps.
And they sent me, the display coordinator said, uh the Smithsonian curator's here.
You go get her.
(47:14):
uh
No pressure.
in.
That would happen to you.
And ah we went out, we stood on the balcony for a while.
She looked at everything, the O.R.
was there, and the little courtyard and all that.
And she looked at it, and she looked at me and she said, did we send you everything?
(47:38):
The highest co-
It was wonderful.
And I saw the ah display coordinator for the museum taking the press tour around.
And he brought them to the swamp.
And he said, OK, before I let you guys in here, I want to tell you, I watched a guyarrange the straw on the floor in there for three hours.
(48:06):
Do you know what I'm saying to you?
And they said, And they were very, very careful.
my god, ah could truly listen to you tell stories about your life Forever I have I twoquestions left for you We are definitely doing a part two because I want to have Margaret
(48:27):
on separately And then I also want to put Margaret and Jim together for the maximum chaosah The I want to hear how will you tell us a parent?
want to hear from your perspective of a parent
what you would tell other parents or caregivers of young people with career aspirations inthe arts.
(48:51):
A solid foundation in the liberal arts, for one thing.
um I understand the value of a conservatory approach, but for many people who do not havea broad background in the other parts of knowledge in general, that will help to inform
(49:12):
the decisions and choices you make as an artist and as a theater professional.
The conservatory produces a form of tunnel vision sometimes.
So if you don't come into the conservatory knowing literature, knowing art, um in the caseof people in technical theater, having a handle on math and engineering and trigonometry
(49:43):
and geometry.
Did I think that I was ever going to know anything about physics?
No, I'm self-taught.
And so getting a good background in that stuff is super important.
And then just supporting your kid in whatever they decide to do.
When my daughter, she got a full ride to Vassar.
(50:07):
Nice.
OK.
Well, she's frighteningly smart, for starts.
early in high school, I told her, look, if you want to go to a decent college or a reallygood college,
You're going to have to be a scholarship kid because considering what your mom and I dofor a living, hello, cosmetology.
(50:31):
And so she worked her ass off and she went into Vassar for undergrad.
She was going to be an anthropologist, a cultural anthropologist, which is what my sisterhas her doctorate in, as a matter of fact.
And when I came to pick her up from the end of her freshman year and
stuff her entire life in my work van.
(50:55):
We went to this little Greek place in Poughkeepsie that we liked and we sat down and shebroke it to me that she was changing majors and she was going into the arts.
She was going into film.
And she thought I was going to come down on her for it.
(51:18):
And I told her, honey,
I am the last person in the world qualified to give career advice.
Yeah.
Is that what you want to do?
Then I know you, you're going to do well at it.
What can I do to help?
that that's what we
(51:39):
More parents like that more
More parents like that.
Our last question is hopefully an easy one.
uh What media are you consuming right now that is exciting or inspiring to you?
That could be book, movie, podcast, TV show, music, what have you, but something that'sinteresting or inspiring or a great brain rot, depending on your vibe.
(52:04):
I've always got a bunch of stuff going.
think you may remember, Claire, that live Chicago blues is my music of choice.
I thought that.
And I've just weaned myself off of a Howlin' Wolf bender that lasts for a couple of weeks.
(52:27):
Oh my gosh.
I don't listen to lot of podcasts because I don't put headphones in when I'm in the shop.
just feel like I need to be in touch with that stuff.
Totally.
uh I'll watch any movie for any reason, pretty much.
(52:49):
And I've also been, uh you know, I can never remember TV show names.
ah So that's a little bit of a Well, other than MASH.
MASH is incredible.
Bad Sisters was great.
We went through that.
There's something else that we started just recently that I cannot for the life of meremember the name of.
(53:11):
ah It'll take me until we're done with the damn series.
I'm text in two days.
Slow Horses is pretty wonderful.
Love watching him work.
God, yeah.
Awesome.
And I'm uh doing a lot of theater.
And there's the puppy.
Puppy.
(53:31):
uh Yeah, well, now I know how my mom felt when I was two.
uh Except he doesn't have as much impulse control as I did, which is kind of dangerous.
because I'm not good at impulse control now.
uh But we have a five-month-old corgi who is like a little fur missile ah with giant ears.
(54:03):
he's murderously smart and manipulative.
I'm training up pretty good.
All right.
I like also please send me a photo of this dog when you get a chance because he may or maynot become our episode.
Depending, but.
(54:23):
His name is Ralph.
Oh, good.
I think it's important, we named him after my wife's late father.
And I think it's important that a dog be able to pronounce his own name.
oh My mom says dogs and children should all have one syllable names because it's easiestto get them to grasp it.
(54:45):
Yeah, well, my son's name is Jack and I think until she was probably three, my daughterthought her name was Jesus Emma.
oh Lord well on that note on that note Jim Do you have any parting thoughts pieces ofadvice close out close out wishes for our listeners that you'd like to share?
(55:14):
See live theaters, support the arts, compliment the people backstage so they know you knowthat they exist, and appreciate the contribution that everybody starting with the people
who unlock the doors have to the theatrical process because it is one big ass group effortand none of it would work without every last piece work.
(55:40):
Absolutely.
and tip your prop people.
Hahaha
We accept scoc.
Jim it was so incredible to get to sit down and talk to you.
We definitely have to work I'm looking forward to part two and The chaos I've beenpromised and we'll see you soon
Bye.
Living in the Arts is hosted by Laura Scales with original music and editing by JasonDurand.
(56:05):
It is produced and co-hosted by Claire Heldt and our podcast coordinator is Colin Shy.
For more information about anything our guest mentioned, be sure to check out the shownotes.
Living in the Arts is made possible by listeners like you.
Don't forget to follow, rate, review, or share an episode that excites you.
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(56:25):
Thank you so much for joining us and so much for listening.
April for the Arts was a success!
Thank you so much to everyone who participated, watched a stream, donated, hung out, andthe streamers themselves.
(56:45):
Because of all of you, we raised over $4,700 for Living Arts.
That covers rent for one month in the space, and we are so incredibly grateful for allthat anyone who has been involved has done.
We obviously still always appreciate the support, so feel free to check outlivingartsdetroit.org slash donate if you're interested in setting up a single or
(57:05):
recurring monthly donation.
But either way, thank you all so much again.
Bye.
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