Revamping the Prop Room: A Tale as Old as Time

By Alyssa Skriloff 10/10/22

After years of the prop room being a No Man’s Zone, crew students in Mrs. Link’s drama class decided to rough the wilderness. In hopes of popularizing theater once more, Durant juniors Addison Schuett and Lauren Huston have been working in the prop room during class and after school to clean up the mess.

“I feel like if we know what we have we can use more of that stuff so we can use it instead of buying new things we can save money to buy better play, and hopefully have more people come. Get more people involved,” says Addison Schuett.

“It got really bad, but I think we are back on an upward climb,” says Schuett in regard to student interest and involvement in drama and crew.

“I feel that back then play was huge, and now it just kind of died down,” says Huston. Over the years, the theater group has dwindled in numbers, and plays have been smaller. Huston explains the process of growing their department will include training new members in what to do, whether it be on stage or in the crew, and trying to get others to join.

“The goal is to make it more accessible. When we started we had no clue what was in there,” says Schuett. “The main point of us doing this is starting to keep inventory. We’re going to do that electronically so it’s easier to add to and quick to access.”

Creating an organized environment in order to easily put together future plays and musicals has been successful thus far. Their time in the prop room has been spent sorting the props and costumes into two sections; storage and trash.

“I don’t even know how old some of this stuff is. We found some old band uniforms,” states Schuett.

According to senior Korbyn Ryan, the last time the prop room was sorted through was 6 years ago, when he was in 7th grade. Ryan remembers former art teacher Mr. McMahon had students clean it up a bit.

In agreement with Ryan, the girls said it had definitely been a while. “It was really bad, we couldn’t even walk in it,” says junior Lauren Huston. Moldy lemonade powder and pop were found and gotten rid of along with unusable props and costumes.

The dynamic duo found some interesting things, such as a coconut shell bra and a mermaid tail which is thought to be from a production of The Little Mermaid. Older vintage-looking dress designs have also been kept in hopes to use for future performances as well as a quilt-patterned vest with various buttons.

While deciding what they should pitch, the two juniors look for items that are extremely outdated or worn with stains and tears. On top of those, items they doubt they will ever use or have a surplus of, such as day dresses. Bright feathery boas, an ode to their former life in Seuss the Musical are also being taken away.

Their efforts have created a more organized and accessible prop room. It is now walkable, and items being kept are stored in totes that will be sorted out more thoroughly later. While their efforts will come to a pause in due time with the Variety Show coming up on November 6th, the project will continue to be worked on.