Men on Boats
By Jaclyn Backhaus
Purdue University
Directed by William W. Lewis
April 2022
Scenic Design by Carrie Ferrelli
Properties Supervision provided by Jake Wood
Stage Management led by Aubrey Fuhrman
Men on Boats offered an opportunity to venture further into carpentry work than I had ever gone before. One of the key scenic elements of the show was a collection of wooden crates that would house all of the show’s props and serve as sitting surfaces in scenes where the characters stopped to camp. Because of this, the crates needed to be both light enough to carry and sturdy enough to hold the weight of one or two people, depending on the size. After consulting with the director, scenic designer, technical director, and shop heads, I found a good reference image and constructed a small prototype box out of scrap lumber. When the construction method proved successful, I designed six crates that would fit on a small moving platform so they could all be moved together. One of the crates was fixed in place and given a false bottom in order to house equipment needed to power the small campfire that also lived on this platform.
