There is blood in my show. Fake blood. There is blood painted on costumes and blood on people’s hands and blood on props. Blood always causes lots of consternation when you try to put it in a show. It’s super messy, to start – to really look good onstage it has to be quite thick and sticky. Also stage blood gets on everything. Which is usually the point – it’s supposed to have a big visual impact. But it gets on the costumes, it gets all over the set, it drip drip drips onto the floor. And then you have to clean it up. From the stage, from the props, and from the costumes. For our show we use special stage blood that is supposed to wash out of costumes – it has soap as one of the ingredients. But the costume department always does a test first. Just because something says it will wash out, doesn’t always means it will wash out of all fabrics.
Also the other tricky thing about blood – which department deals with it? Sometimes it’s the make-up department. Sometimes it’s the prop department. Let’s be honest, no one wants to be responsible for it, but also no one wants other departments to be responsible for getting their things bloody.
And then, what is the best way to get blood on a person? The super simple way is to paint it on a costume, and have a rip away patch that is surreptitiously removed at the right moment. Sometimes we hide a bloody sponge on the stage somewhere so that the performer can swipe the sponge and then swipe the blood on themselves. Another method we make small blood pouches out of Ziploc bags and the performer carries it hidden on their persons and then pops the bag at the right moment.
For my current show, the blood is actually applied offstage and they performers come back onstage with blood dripping from their hands. The director did indeed want the hands dripping with blood. But we didn’t want to much blood that it would drip all over the floor for people to walk in and track all over. We needed predictable bloodiness. So at one point we were trying to figure out how to get the singers’ hands sufficiently bloody in the thirty seconds that they are offstage.
“Let’s do a blood test,” I suggested to the prop coordinator.
“Sure,” she said. “The tricky thing is figuring out where we can do it.”
Turns out that if we do it backstage, we have to have the prop department involved and they were about to go on dinner break. If we do it down in the dressing rooms, we have to have a wardrobe person involved and they weren’t on the call that day.
“Let’s just do it in the parking garage,” I said in half-joking exasperation.
“Actually….” she said.
Which is how I ended up kneeling on an old sheet in the bottom level of the parking garage at work with my hands in a basin of blood.
It was messy and sticky. But it did wash off rather well.
Sometimes I love how ridiculous my job is.
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As always, the behind-the-scenes reality of your job can be SO DANG COOL! It’s very convincing; I know if I had stumbled across you in the parking garage I would have had questions. Though more likely I wouldn’t have stopped to ask them and just would have run the other way!!
hah! There was one moment when I thought, “Maybe I should give the security office a heads up that there will be bloody people in the parking lot…”
This is such a cool theater story! From your post’s title, I almost wish you were doing Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, haha! Seriously, though, the organization of departments backstage and who does what and when and where is wild and so impressive as it all comes together for a show!
I love these behind the scenes peeks! I never before thought about what that would entail on stage. I’m not sure I’ve even seen blood on stage, now that I think about it.
Such a lovely visual of someone just innocently driving in a parking garage and coming upon that scene!
I have wondered about how the blood gets onstage, and now I know! And I’m glad no one came across you in the garage and got freaked out.
I was kind of fun to be doing something so odd!
What a great glimpse at some behind-the-scenes prop work! What a wild day at work that must have been, haha.
Your job is SO fun. Now, what do you use for blood? Paint? A powder that is mixed with water? Or, is it something that can be bought at Party city, ready to go? Sorry if I missed it in the post above.
There are all sorts of recipes online to make your own blood sometimes that includes chocolate syrup, but we usually just buy it by the gallon jug. The kind we use is specially formulated to wash out easily.
Scariest photo ever in a blog I subscribe to. Haha. Well done.
The behind-the-scene details are so cool. Thanks for sharing them with us… most people probably never think about how these things are done in a play?