Familiarise yourself with any props

And the Words of Wisdom this week? Familiarise yourself with any props. Stage properties, known as ‘props’, are actor traps. Anything that possibly can go wrong when you’re handling a prop probably will. They sometimes seem to have a life of their own. The only way to protect yourself against this is to get to know everything there is to know about your props. Most props are things that your character uses regularly in their life, so you need to practice with them until you feel your use of them is habitual. Often the props you are going to use are introduced late in the rehearsal period or, if you are filming, on the day of the shoot. In the little time you have you need to get to know exactly how the props function and establish a precise routine of how you are going to handle them. If you are using machinery or firearms you may need to do some prior research. If you are using an umbrella or a walking stick it will pay you to observe now much variation there is in the way people use them. There are fewer parts than there used to be in which people smoke, but cigarette lighters seem to take a particular delight in malfunctioning when they are most needed. Make sure you can work them infallibly. Eating and drinking are full of hazards. One’s mouth tends to get dry when performing, so it’s best to take very small mouthfuls. Pouring drinks is another problem. One thing to remember is that hot and cold liquids sound differently, so if you’re pouring from a teapot the liquid has to really be hot. Another thing that often goes wrong is the handling of heavy objects. Your body shifts to balance under the load and if the object is not really heavy it’s more or less impossible to fake it. So if you’re carrying a heavy suitcase make sure it really is heavy, otherwise the laws of Physics will prevent you from leaning over far enough, the suitcase will swing too easily and when you put it down it will sound different – empty, instead of full. So; familiarise yourself with any props.