Once upon a time I did a production of “Dancing at Lughnasa”. I was building the set, but had a student doing props I was advising. I very much enjoyed helping with the props for this- bringing in antiques, half-finished knitting, building up a “coal” fire, and generally giving the set lots of love and dressing to bring it to life. One of the props that gave my advisee the hardest time was this chicken that features in the script. If you don’t know the play, one of the main characters talks about her rooster throughout and then comes in for the last scene and the poor thing is…. an ex chicken.
To meet this dramatic moment full of pathos, we really need a dead looking bird that looked decent.
I could not beg, borrow, or buy anything even close. When I started reading show blogs detailing horrific amateur taxidermy adventures in pursuit of this show, I saw enough. I built my own bird from scratch and posted the tutorial online. That was when the requests started rolling in.
This prop chicken has been all over the world as a rental. I joke that I know any time that Friel work is being performed (usually each spring) because I receive an email.
I use this prop as a case study in my classes about SHOWING YOUR WORK because unlikely sources will be very interested and as a field we are far too busy doing to document. This gives a great disservice to others in our field, as it is my opinion that not enough of our work and processes and secrets can be found online.