One room is filled with plastic plants and other faux greenery. The room next door is lined with rows and rows of old telephones and typewriters. The nearby cupboards are stacked with every type of basket or bucket for every occasion.

This is the theater’s prop department and it is the domain of Jennifer Deutz, SSTC’s prop master..

What does the prop master do?

“We fill in the gaps between set and costume,” Deutz said. “If it’s not on the actor or part of the set, it is a prop.”

This means every object the actor manipulates on set needs to be found or created by Deutz before the first performance.

Deutz has been involved with SSTC since 2018. She helped design escape rooms for SSTC as part of Halloween haunted house events. She remained involved with the theater ever since. This included assisting with props and helping organize the collection. Around two years ago, she was officially named prop master. In this role, Deutz is one of the most important people at SSTC because she knows where to find everything.

“Every play I work on, when I get the script I start working on a list of what they will need,” she said. This job can be challenging based on the demands of the play. Depending on when the play is set, this means finding period-accurate items. It also means making sure no anachronistic props. For example, no one in “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” has an iPhone.

“If I do my job right, I am invisible,” she said.

Over the years, SSTC has amassed a large collection of props from various productions. These props are stored in the theater basement across five rooms. The second prop room contains anything bigger than a microwave. The third room is called the Floral Room. It contains any greenery that could be needed for a play. Dozens of plants line the walls. It resembles a miniature forest.

The fourth room near the theater boiler holds different chairs and smaller furniture and appliances like an antique refrigerator. The fifth room holds the larger furniture like couches and tables.

Part of Deutz’s role as prop master is to keep the props collection organized to ensure production can find what they need when they need it. She also needs to go through donated items and weed out which items are useful.

During a recent tour of the SSTC prop department, Deutz began by scrounging through a box of newly donated items. She found a set of giant plastic lollipops.

“Could ‘Wonka’ use these?” she asks, referring to Sleepy Eye Community Theaters upcoming production of “Willie Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.” Deutz made a note to contact the play’s production team.

Due to the size of SSTC’s prop collection, it is not unusual to receive loan requests from other area theaters. New Ulm has three high schools, each hosting multiple productions a year. Many of the schools secure props from SSTC.

In the last few years, the area high schools have all held productions of “Bye-Bye Birdie.” The play is set in 1958 and requires several period-accurate telephones. SSTC’s prop department has an entire shelf dedicated to antique telephones. Nothing dates a play better than a phone.

Deutz said people will notice if you have the wrong phone for the era. That kind of mistake can ruin the suspension of disbelief for the audience.

Deutz keeps a logbook detailing which theater has which prop. Items are checked in and checked out similar to a library. SSTC will sometimes borrow props from other theaters if something is needed for a play that cannot be purchased or constructed.

Deutz said they are currently borrowing a well and sheep from GFW’s theater for use in “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat.”

When the prop department does not have the correct item and no other theater can loan it, Deutz will sometimes need to create it herself.

One of her proudest creations was a golden harp assembled for a production of “Into the Woods.” Deutz said the prop was extremely complex and from the stage, it looked real.

Deutz cited “Little Shop of Horrors” as the most prop-heavy production. The main set needed to start as a run-down plant store. This meant creating dead and sickly plant arrangements. As the play progressed and the little shop gained success, the arrangements needed to be more lively. It did not help that several vases broke during rehearsal. Deutz had to fix the arrangements within two days.

“Little Shop of Horror” also featured the strangest of her homemade props. The musical required cast members to feed human body parts to a plant. Since there was a shortage of fake limbs and intestines in the prop department, Deutz made them herself. After completing the assignment Deutz asked her husband – a veterinarian – if the props looked real. He confirmed it.

Deutz has been in the prop department long enough to develop some favorites. There is a rubber chicken she named “Sheldon.” Not everyone in SSTC production needs a rubber chicken, but Deutz has managed to sneak Sheldon into about seven shows. He was the stand-in for the goose in “Beauty and the Beast.” She admitted it might be hard to get him into “Dreamcoat.”

Right now Deutz is searching for loose corn kernels. “Dreamcoat” features a scene where corn is poured into bags. The sacks need to be filled with corn or something that resembles corn. The production is also on the lookout for camels and palm trees.

Donations are always being accepted. If anyone has any items they feel could work as props, SSTC is staffed between 9 a.m. and noon Monday through Friday.

In addition to serving as prop master, Deutz has performed on stage as well. She previously played the wicked stepmother in a production of “Cinderella.” She is currently rehearsing to play the Narrator in the SSTC’s production of “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.”

Asked what she likes best about serving as prop master, Deutz said “I love theater,” Deutz said. “It is about being part of something bigger than myself.”

Every theatrical production, whether it is a play or musical, is a group effort. It takes dozens if not hundreds of individuals to put on a show, from the actors on stage to the behind-the-scenes stage crew and everything in between. It is this collaborative effort Deutz admires most.