Stage Food

[Prisoner 24601]

Posted: 12/30/05 at 12:40am

I was wondering: what is the "food" that people eat on stage really made of? In Sweeney Todd, for example, is the meat pie Sweeney takes a bite of really a meat pie, or is it just cookie dough shaped like a pie? Is there some edible material that you can use in place of an actual food product that won't cause you to choke on stage? How do you make a fake meat pie?

[C is for Company]

Posted: 12/30/05 at 12:42am

Its mimed :)
edit; at least in the new production. I cant give any imput however on the 82 tape

Updated On: 12/30/05 at 12:42 AM

[chinkie azn jai]

Posted: 12/30/05 at 12:44am

After watching Passion, I wondered the same thing. Like when the soldiers eat at the table.

[YankeesFan175]

Posted: 12/30/05 at 12:48am

in a show i was in, the guy on stage really got to eat food. i saw the huge piece of fried chicken sitting on the props table and it took me a minute to figure out if it was real or fake, lol.

[lamentingenvelope]

Posted: 12/30/05 at 1:08am

Oh man. I went to a HILARIOUS seminar sort of thing where a prop master lamented the woes of trying to make food that was "acceptable" for the actors. Too funny - she was talking about how "and then this one's a vegetarian and then this one won't eat anything that's too 'heavy' and this one only eats foods that begin with the letter 'T'..."

[jimmirae]

Posted: 12/30/05 at 2:13am

I have had to "eat" in 3 different shows, usually, unless otherwise stated, I was asked what I liked. In one it had to be a leg of something and they allowed me drumsticks, we revolved around chicken and turkey till the audience seemed to like the turkey effect better, LOL!
I also had to eat sushi once onstage and I started to choke - (I was really choking, But I LOVE sushi!)
I gave three small (but potent!) coughs and a slice of sushi flew out of my mouth and into the front row... I didn't ask as to the rest of the story, I felt bad enough hurling sushi into whomever's laps.

[SirLiir]

Posted: 12/30/05 at 2:33am

I know in DRS, Norbert eats scrambled eggs and french fries.

[FosseBoi]

Posted: 12/30/05 at 2:38am

When I did "Carousel", in the opening scene, we used whip cream for ice cream. By the last performance, I felt a little sick from eating so much whip cream.

[Footlooser]

Posted: 12/30/05 at 2:43am

When I did "Into The Woods" we had all real baked goods in my shop. It was awsome, and smelled soo good.

[jimmirae]

Posted: 12/30/05 at 3:54am

Whipped cream is nice but wow - I know too much can make ya wanna yak, eww!
I love the fresh baked goods for ITW, I wanna do that one now and have some nice pastries! Yummy!!

[Jon]

Posted: 12/30/05 at 9:28am

When I did SWEENEY TODD, we used Hostess Fruit Pies!

In the original HELLO DOLLY, Carol Channing ate these HUGE dumplings in the restaurant scene. Then, when Horace is arrested, she still has her plate of food in the coutroom, and keeps eating throughout the scene. The dumplings were, in fact, cotton candy. There was a cotton candy machine backstage.

I once did a show in which a character was supposed to devour a big, juicy, rare steak. We made it out of watermelon. Another time, a family was supposed to be eating lobster. We took the empty lobster tail shells and filled them with mashed potatoes.

The most important thing is to use something soft and moist that the actors won't choke on.

[touchmeinthemorning]

Posted: 12/30/05 at 9:35am

My first Sweeney, our amazing Mrs. Lovett baked the cast real meat pies for every show. 8 shows a week. 4 month run. And she was a Broadway star, but she made the time to (as she put it) "bake for her art."

[children&art]

Posted: 12/30/05 at 10:29am

i worked on joe dipietro's "over the river and through the woods" in dallas at a very intimate theatre in the round. if you know this show, you know it revolves around an italian american pair of grandparents and their grandson who comes to dinner every sunday. we went through i dont know how many boxes of pasta and cans of sauce, but the funniest were the meatballs. we could have used real meatballs, but that would have been too heavy so instead we used - rye bread rolled into balls. dont ask me why the actors wanted that, but they did. the stove and oven in the green room never got such a workout as they did during this show. but it still points out how poor a theatre we were because there was an italian restaurant right next door to us that we could have just bought food at.

Updated On: 12/30/05 at 10:29 AM

[Gothampc]

Posted: 12/30/05 at 10:36am

In olden days, mashed potatoes were used for ice cream.

Tea is often used for liquor.

I have always pitied anyone who had to do the play Gemini. They are required to eat a spaghetti dinner for every show.

lamenting: I know what you mean. One time I was working a show where the characters drank a lot. One of the actors wanted the ice in his drink to be made from the type of bottled water that he drank.

[Dollypop]

Posted: 12/30/05 at 10:54am

Carol Channing has a special concoction similar to cotton candy made up for the dumplings she devoured in HELLO, DOLLY!. Anyone who saw her performance knows that she ate a mountain of them in the restaurant scene. At one performance I counted 24 dumplings go into her mouth.

Whenever I had to eat on stage I request canned pears. They cut easily and are very digestible.