How Do They Do That:
Food On Stage
Close encounters with food for actors doing live theater sometimes can be dangerous, especially in amateur productions.
Several years ago, I played Annie Sullivan, Helen Keller’s
teacher, in “Monday After the Miracle.” I was standing backstage behind the curtain, with a plate of muffins that the props person had given to me to serve Helen and Annie’s husband, John
Macy, in the next scene. In the brief moment before the backstage lights went out and the curtain rose, I looked down at the plate and realized that the muffins were moldy. There was
nothing I could do. I had to watch as Helen Keller and John Macy stuffed the awful things into their mouths and then swallow on stage.
Community theaters and other small productions use volunteers, people who have an enthusiasm for the stage, but have no formal theater training. Here, the props person had never handled
props before. He didn’t realize that muffins don’t last at room temperature for a week.
Food safety is built into college theater courses and is a hallmark of professional companies. The Department of Theater and Dance at the University of California–Davis has a safe working
practices document for their productions. They require that all food and beverage preparations be supervised and inspected before each performance. There is a procedure for cleaning
utensils and dishes and for the storage of cold and hot food items.
Though moldy muffins may be the worst that an actor encounters, there are times when eating on stage requires good acting. Stage foods, even if freshly made and safe to eat, can sometimes
be unpalatable. One director I know ordered his prop master to make a “casserole.” He wanted it to read well from the back of the small theater, be easy for the young man to make, and
be inexpensive. This “casserole” was made with cream of mushroom soup and breakfast cereal, all served cold.
Then, there is the problem of having to eat a lot of something every night for the run of a show. My husband and I were in a community theater production of “Daddy’s Dying.” We had to eat
nearly a whole lemon pie every night for the two weeks of technical rehearsals and for the four performances. Even ten years later, we still can’t look at a lemon pie without cringing.
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