Chair for Charlie & The Chocolate Factory
Prop buyers benefits of attending antiques fairs and discovering the individuality antiques fairs can provide to prop buyers.
The International Antique & Collectors Fairs antiques fairs at Newark and Ardingly are an essential part of our work as prop buyers for major theatre productions in the UK and further afield. Our company is responsible for choosing and buying props and furniture for many different plays and musicals and work with the designer to bring the details of their design alive. We deal with everything on the set which isn’t walls or scenery so have to buy everything from door handles and curtains to furniture, canes, parasols, plants, weapons, wooden legs, taxidermy, all of the items seen onstage. As such the IACF fairs are a vital part of our work and when we start work on a new project one of the first things we always look at is when the next antique markets are so that we can find as many things as we possibly can from our lists.
This year we have already shopped at Ardingly and Newark fairs buying a mixture of Industrial furniture and props for the West End production of Macbeth starring James McAvoy, period furniture and props for Trelawny of the Wells at the Donmar Warehouse directed by movie director Joe Wright, Old Times currently playing in the West End with Kristan Scott Thomas and Rufus Sewell and we will be at Ardingly with a huge list for Sam Mendes production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory which opens at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in London in the spring.
Over our time shopping at these fairs we have sent props all across the globe, from Mary Poppins in Holland, Australia, 2 American productions, many plays to Broadway, later in the year we have the Sunshine Boys travelling to LA with Danny DeVito which was in the West End this summer, all full of props bought at the IACF fairs.
Cupboard ~ Macbeth
Shopping at the IACF fairs is a brilliant resource and a great day out. If you’ve never been before it’s like all of the random items on Ebay that you can ever imagine as well as an amazing mixture of furniture, vintage pieces and the weird and wonderful. Having been doing this for about 7 years we now have a great relationship with many of the dealers who always attend the fairs and always know that we’ll pick up some great pieces you just can never find anywhere else.
Look out for us at Ardingly clutching our lists and hoping to find everything we need to bring Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to life!!!
Thanks to our Guest Blogger Chris Marcus of Marcus Hall Props
