by Michael Christensen, Charleston Stage Property Master
Part of the fun of being a Property Master is looking for just the right prop for a show. The Kit Kat nightclub described in Cabaret had telephones on each table so that customers could dial up the cute guy or gal and invite them to join them at their table. We could have just gone into our prop closet and found some phones to use, but because the phones were such an important element in the design, we decided to research German and European phones and we came across this stunning period design from Sweden—not exactly Berlin, but close enough. Not only is the design of this phone elegant and unusual, it is tall which will make it stand out on the cabaret tables. And so I went to work to reproduce this look in our scene shop and the result you’ll see in the second photo below—which I hope when you see the show, you will agree, is the perfect prop for this scene.
