A Case Study of Using Plastics in Scenic Design
by Erika Guary
Erika Guay is an Associate Professor of Theatre at SUNY Plattsburgh and designs scenery, costumes, lighting, puppetry, and directs TYA productions.
Over the years as a theatrical designer and professor, I have had the joy of experiencing many productions that used unconventional materials in scenic designs. You could say that most crafty theatre people enjoy the challenge of different mediums. I myself am constantly seeking inspiration as someone who loves to transform items and give them that “one more” use before they have to see the recycle bin or dumpster.
Thus, I decided to share one example of a production that discovered the pros and cons of using both new and used plastic items. I am hopeful this documentation of our work will help others to plan for the challenges of using plastics and to consider the impact of the choices they are making on budget, time, and labor.
In 2019, I was part of the design team for a production of Into the Woods at SUNY Plattsburgh. Stephen Sondheim’s popular musical requires most productions to create a transformational forest that allows for fantasy to rule Act 1, and destruction in Act 2. Inspired by artists covering trees with everyday objects (yarn-bombing anyone?), we explored the idea of a modern, lush world of plastic trees that would alter into a barren landscape as the “giants” stomp across the story. And so, our department ventured into using a new material, which was part motivated by design, and in part by happenstance.
Working with Trays
For you see, it just so happened that when I moved to Plattsburgh I bought a farm that was once a greenhouse business. I was saddled with thousands of old plastic pots, planters, and trays. They filled the hayloft of my barn, which was fine, till I needed the space to store, shockingly, hay for my sheep. I found an unsuspecting person off Craig’s list to take most of the pots and planters, but no one wanted those trays. These are the trays greenhouses have to keep pots organized on the tight tablespaces or to let customers carry their plants to the cash till. I had piles of these trays, and one day, I was looking at them (trying to decide if they could be recycled) when I realized they had some rather great patterns, were all the same color, and were fairly sturdy. Somehow I managed to convince my Technical Director, Director, and Assistant Designer that we could make these trays into modern, graphic structured trees and cut them apart for platform facings which would provide everything we wanted for both the lush look of the first half and the barren landscape for the second.
So I filled up the back of my pickup with at least 500 of these trays and we started with some tree ideas. Back in our design process, we had decided on flat trees connected to battens that are separate from foliage borders to allow for space for lighting and transformations. We decided to zip-tied the rectangle trays together and ran long pieces of aircraft cable through two sides and attached them to the battens. With a recycled piece of wood at the bottom, we attached the trees to the floor and kept the trays “tight” to gain a striking silhouette. We also backed the trees with recycled scrim, just to give a little depth to the trays.
As you often do when trying a new material, we also explored ways to alter the trays. We discovered they could be cut with scissors, clippers, or the bandsaw to make the facing for the platforming and stairs. When cut, the plastic was still rigid enough for our use. A real feature was the ability for the plastic to curve for some spots, and we could even make a light-weight window for the Mysterious Man to peek through using zip-tie hinges and sticky-back Velcro. Overall, the trays were not hard to use and came together quicker than we imagined. It was simple for our largely student labor to create pieces on their own and attach them, and the time saved in these items helped for other elements of the show.
We did not paint these trays but washed them after being in the barn for 20+ years. I also wanted to note that these trays retail for around $1-$3 each (depending on where you buy them and how many), so saving these trays from the recycle bin or the dump was cost-saving for our production. When you factor in the variety of patterns I happen to have, the trays would have been purchased in small amounts (thus increasing the price). We used around 200 trays in the set which means we saved around $200-$600 on that purchase. The other 300 trays are currently sitting in prop storage, with the hope they can be used for the future. I would also note, since we had so many of these trays, it was also less daunting for the students to explore with them. Ruin a few trays? Not a big deal!
Working with Balls
Another one of our research inspirations was a piece of installation art that used plastic ball-pitballs to make huge grapevines. We loved the colors, the texture, and sheen of the plastic balls to create our foliage borders for the lush-look of Act 1. For our purposes, we needed thin borders that could fly out in Act 2, and not hit anything in our full fly schedule. So while we were not 100% sold on how to make the balls work, I still took the plunge and bought 2000 ball-pitballs in varying colors, sizes, and plastic grades.
I learned more about plastic ball-pit-balls than I ever thought I would. The company I bought them from immediately called me to confirm my desires about the durability of the balls. One of the balls I had bought was a thicker, “industrial-grade” play ball while others were thinner, deemed a quality for home use. At this point, I really was not sure what we were going to do with the balls, but I stuck with what I had bought so we could explore the grades more once we started creating. The thinner plastic balls that I bought 1,500 of had a range of colors, sizes from 2”-3” in diameter, and prices from .15 cents to .23 cents each. The 500 industrial grade balls I picked in light green, 3” diameter, and were .30 cents each. All told, I spent $502.02 on balls.
At first, we planned to string the balls in clusters to create foliage or a vine-like texture. We tried a few types of glue to put whole balls together, and we tried a few wire stringing techniques. The wire was going to take us a long time and the glues were cumbersome. But the real kicker for us was the tight fly schedule between scenery and lighting, so concerned with space, I suggested we cut the balls in half and play with the concave and convex sides of the structure, and cut our depth by half.
Luckily, I had saved our old black scrim from the trash, and we started playing with that as our backing with the ½ cut balls. Again, glue and wire both posed problems. So, remembering we had some spray foam sitting around from our production of She Kills Monsters, I grabbed a can, and my Assistant Designer and I started playing with the spray foam as a connector and texture for the balls/foliage of the trees to the scrim.
With a few trials and errors, we discovered the balls would stick with spray foam alone so long as we covered most of the sides of the balls. The end result was a 2D relief border that was fairly thin and light-weight. So we spread out large sheets of thin plastic tarp over the entire shop floor, cut the scrim into border shapes (around 40’x10’), and spray foam on that with large crews of students. The project was fun and simple for the students. They enjoyed having artistic freedom, but were not as hot on the impact the spray foam had on their clothes! For the future, I would not permit anyone to use spray foam on a project without head-to-toe old clothing, hair covered, and disposable gloves.
In terms of the different plastic ball grades, the thinner plastic was much easier to cut and manipulate. We could punch a hole with an awl and use standard craft scissors to cut the balls in half. We also crafted birds, costume accessories, the hen, and other props with the thinner balls (cake pops anyone?). It was easy to get Sculpt-or-Coat, Rosco Clear Gel, and low-temp hot glue to stick to the balls and students were able to attach beads, glitter, plastic bottles, and other items. It was a true joy to watch students work creatively with the materials, and again, these items were easy for them to play with. However, while the commercial-grade plastic balls came in a nice color for leaves (a light pastel green, which I could not find in thinner plastics) they were harder to cut and much heavier. We could cut them on a band-saw but found it quicker to cut most of them with very sharp matte knives. They stuck the same with the spray foam but were harder to use for prop or costume creation and we ended up only using them for the set. In short, the thinner plastic was the better buy, also costing less per ball and by far more useful. If I could turn back time, I would not have bought the industrial-grade balls.
In concern with painting the balls, we embraced the color of the plastic and used some watered-down latex paint with a hand sprayer and had no issues with that sticking to both the balls and the spray foam. I recommend finding the plastic in the color you want rather than struggling with time and having paint rubbed/chipped/bounced off or needing sealant or spray-can paints.
Working with Flame Retarding
A major consideration in using plastics onstage is safety. A large issue is fire and keeping the plastic from going up in a ball of smoke. Therefore, one of the challenges from our point-of-view for use of plastic on stage is flame retarding. With wood we know what to expect, but this was our first show with large amounts of plastic onstage. We certainly used caution and followed the NFPA 705 (https://www.nfpa.org/codes-and-standards/all-codes-and-standards/list-of-codesand-standards/detail?code=705) guidelines for match tests on all the plastics.
When we first started this process, we match tested every piece of plastic, scrim, and ball we were thinking of using. It all failed. So we spent a good chunk of time testing flame retarding products on our materials. We also did tests on each individual material. We used two different products: Flamex and Snuff-it. We also tested 1, 2, and 3 coats of each product on every type of plastic and scrim we were using.
In the end, the 3x coating of Snuff-it worked on the spray foam/ball/scrim borders. While two coats also passed the test, the extra coat ensured no fire after the source of the flame was removed. With the 2x coating the fire on the material went out after a second.
For the trays, 3x coats also were applied of Flamex and some had 3x coats of Snuff-it. Both samples passed the match test.
When using plastic, the correct flame retardant is vital. In comparing the two, the Flamex costs around $60 per gallon and Snuff-it at $30 per gallon. We used approximately 3 gallons of Flamex and 6 gallons of Snuff-it. For a cost of around $360. We did not predict how many coats of flame retardant we would need, thus this expense was higher than we expected. Plus the extra coats took more time and thus more hours of labor and dry time. So while we gained time on the construction and painting we used that time back in the flame retarding process.
Working with Lights
As mentioned before, our fly schedule for this production was rather tight. The Plastic foliage borders were very close to conventional lighting equipment and heat was an issue. Or I should say, it became an issue, as it was a slow process. Once we hit tech, the lights were on more than they were before. Slowly, we noticed the borders started warping. You can see in the photos how they became “wavy,” similar to snow sneaking off your roof and curling around before falling to the ground. The borders started curling away from the heat as the spray foam heated up and slowly transformed.
While this might not be an issue to some, we had plans of flying our borders both in and out during the show. At first tech, we were able to do it, but as the curving became worse, we started discussing options. We had already hung z-tech over any light going near plastic at the hang. We thought about laying the borders down and trying to flatten them on the ground or using some wood or other stiff material as a backing. In the end, we feared that doing anything would crack the spray foam and destroy the borders. As such, our original plans of bringing in the borders for the end of the show were thwarted and we left them out after they flew out with various giant footsteps.
Other issues
One of our other concerns was the plastic fronts of the platforms being destroyed or broken by a stray foot of a production member. Some of the larger spaces we covered were a little fragile at first and we solved that issue by running extra 2x4 bracing in some spots. We did have some corners where the plastic was badly damaged by shoes, and so we worked with the performers to pick up their feet in certain locations and added some wood bracing to help hold the plastic closer to the corner.
For all the little corners and pieces of plastic, we had no issues with the fabric of the costumes getting stuck. We used gaff tape to help cover rough spots and work with costumes to keep dangling fabric to a minimum. One large advantage of the plastic fronts was that repairs were simple (replace the piece) and we had plenty of trays to work with so we weren’t nervous about not having enough to get through the production. However, the extra bracing and repairs took time and skill to do, leaving less time on other projects.
Also, we certainly noticed how much material still ended up in the recycle and trash bin. Using plastic for this production was not motivated by environmental choices. We filled an entire trash can with empty spray foam cans for proper removal by our Environmental office. Plus, once the set was done, all the trees, borders, and plastic were covered in flame retardant and impossible to save. Knowing that most of the set went into the dumpster still saddens us and also challenges us to do better in future work with plastic.
Conclusion
For being the first time we have tackled plastic on stage we learned to let go of the fear of using a new material, especially one we thought was too fragile and expensive for stage use. Our budget and labor force tackled the material well. We balanced our challenges by embracing the color and textures of the plastic we used. Granted, had the balls been more money, the trays not so available, and the added bonus of a large scrim used one last time before it saw the trash, I doubt we would have even considered these materials. The hardest part is knowing how little of the new plastic was saveable after just one show, and there is a guilt for a lack of planning for our environmental choices.
I for one had many moments of doubt about using plastic for the bulk of a set for a musical, however, the experience has emboldened me to continue to work with other “atypical” materials for scenery before they see the recycle bin. My next personal challenge is utilizing leftover/recycled plastic tubing from local maple sugar operations when the right show shows itself.
“Into the Woods” at SUNY Plattsburgh was directed by Kim Hartshorn, music directed by Timothy Morningstar, scenery and costume designed by Erika Guay, and lighting designed by Margaret Swick. Photos by Doc Tom.