That's an interesting topic. I noticed it at my internship, and was wondering on some of those lines. I remember what one
props guy said, which is that
props is sort of a jack-of-all-trades position in that you need to know electricity, painting, construction,
etc.. From my understanding though is it seems like
props jobs have become more about procurement than production, and areas of knowledge like electricity are unknown, and get handed off to the ME.
Should the ME know these things? Probably, but not necessarily. So why is it his responsibility all of a sudden? Is anything related to electricity automatically the electrician's realm? A great example of this came up during the first shows of the theater's season. A few scenic elements (columny things) had a
line of small bulbs up the length of the
face. Whose responsibility is it to
wire this? It has to get done at some-point during fabrication, so does this mean the ME needs to trudge over to the scene shop for a day, while holding up everyone else?
If there is one thing to be taken away from this,
props in relation to electrics, I think it's that prop masters should have an okay grasp of basic electronic components. The bigger stuff, sure, outsource it to the ME, but plan ahead. Little DC stuff shouldn't be that hard for simple effects, and shouldn't
throw you off too much if you mess-up. You'll at-least be able to lighten the load of the ME, who may be cutting R119 and R132 for every
ERS in the
plot.