Props
Rachel Velasco has 3 years of experience fabricating a wide array of props including puppet creatures, magical items, set dressing.
For the cake we wanted to make sure the cake came apart in several reassemblable pieces. Other productions had it split into 6 even segments, but we wanted the pieces to be messy chunks to highlight the struggle of eating the entire cake in one sitting.
​
Bar stool cushions were cut the the correct tier sizes and painted brown. The icing was flex paste rubber to ensure it would be flexible enough to be hidden inside of a school desk as the actor "ate" the cake. The cherries are beads painted with gloss and threaded with plastic lanyard making cord.
Matilda: Bruce Bogtrotter's Cake
The Amanda Thripp puppet was designed to be picked up by the pigtails and swung around before being tossed off stage. This meant she had to be sturdy for multiple shows as well as rehearsals.
We measured the height of the actress and constructed the body from poolnoodles that were heat welded together. Wires wrapped in cloth tape were threaded through the head to serve as handles underneath the pigtails.
​
The entire thing was covered with
muslin cloth and painted.The hands are kids gardening glovesfilled with Locktite insulation foam.
Matilda: Chuckable
Amanda Thripp
Bella the T-rex has to emerge from
between the trees and eat an
evil X-files adjacent secret agent
at the climax of the play. The puppet has to be light enough that
a single person can operate it and
the jaws must open wide enough that it can believably eat the actor.
​
Bella's jaw hinge was scavenged from a collapsible shoe that the
actor can lever open from the inside. The head itself is made from
cardboard, pool noodles pink foam board and large Christmas ornaments for the eyes.
Incident at
Panther Hills:
T-rex puppet
Sea World Orlando's yearly Halloween show "Siren's Song"
required a large number of deep
sea diving helmets that looked like they had been abandoned underwater for years and had been attacked by some kind of creature.
​
The helmets were build from xps foam and dremeled for weathering
the rivets are binder brads stabbed
through the foam
Siren's Song:
DIvers suits
