To Make a World

Miriam sends the team a ten-minute video clip from the era they’re supposed to be recreating (which they supplement with research on Google when necessary) so they can get a sense of what they need… and then they’re off to the junk stores and thrift shops where “respectable people” don’t shop.

There’s no official budget for props, but the production heads trust the team can be counted on to spend the least amount of money from any department. The team looks at the money they use as tzedakah money, so every penny needs to be pinched until it shrieks. Of course, they could call prop rental services, and that would solve the dilemma of where to find a printing press… to the tune of $600. Instead, they find one on Facebook Marketplace (a lot like Craig’s List) out on Long Island. “That guy was a real creeper, but he left the printing press outside for us, and we left the money in his mailbox,” says Bracha. The price? $25.

“We spend a lot of our own personal money getting ‘free’ props,” Bracha admits. Among other things, “We pay gas and tolls and parking tickets and moving violations.”

“We’ll jump through hoops to get things for free and almost free. And if it’s too expensive, we make it ourselves,” Chanie explains. She’s been doing props since she was a teen in summer camp 40+ years ago, when she found something she was good at. Take the Victrola record player from the show “English to a T.” The authentic ones were prohibitively expensive, so they took a wooden silverware box, a lampshade, about 900 glue sticks, made it themselves, and spray-painted it the perfect shades of dark-brown and gold.