On any given Monday morning students can be found studying, rushing to class or swiping into Lenoir Dining Hall.
However, Junior Abigail Armstrong can be found striking.
Striking is a theater term used to describe the process of breaking down a set after a play has completed its run and providing a clean slate for the next show. After working for the props department of PlayMakers Repertory Company since her freshman year, Armstrong is used to spending a lot of time helping shows make smooth transitions.
“If we don’t have projects, then it’s usually miscellaneous stuff” she said. “But my friend has been working on a carpentry project for the past week.”
Although Armstrong only works two to three days a week, she said she enjoys the unpredictability of the job and that unlike most work-study jobs, each day is a surprise.
“I told my mom I didn’t want to work at a desk. I actually wanted to do something,” she said.
Mike Gerlach, who has been with the props team since July, said striking can turn into anything and compared the process to real estate.
“When you buy a house, the house itself is the set,” Gerlach said. “The appliances, furniture and anything else excluding costumes are the props.”
What Gerlach said he enjoys most about the working backstage is being able to watch the things he has built being put into action. He said behind the stage action is something people get used to.
“We can’t put sets up until everything is gone. It has to be done really fast,”he said.
Armstrong said working behind the scenes in theater varies greatly from show to show. Last year she was assigned the interesting task of making a brick.
“We had to be able to throw a brick on stage. It had to look and sound like a brick so we made hard plastic bricks and dyed it to make it look real,” she said.
Armstrong said her work doesn’t stop with prop making, though. She also helps to select, and transport props for shows.
“We have crazy things like a huge champagne bottle, fake cakes, clocks, phones and even animal heads on plaques," she said.
Armstrong said the basement of Caldwell building is where retired props go to rest so they can be re-purposed for other shows. The building houses items ranging from refrigerators and chairs, to stretchers and autopsy tables.
“One time, we brought a huge box of records back,” she said “I kicked it and a ton of cockroaches scrambled out. It was gross, but the records looked great when we were done with them.”
In addition to working behind the scenes, each student who works striking gets two free tickets to each show. Armstrong’s favorite play she got to see was an original sequel to Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun.”
“Sometimes my grandma comes up and I take her to them,” Armstrong said. “Last year I made the mistake of taking her to see Cabaret. She’s a nice, eastern Carolina woman and it was raunchy. They sang a song about threesomes and I was like, I’m so sorry grandma.”
arts@dailytarheel.com
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