The Dream Factory

Have you ever dreamed of owning a life-size bobble-head doll? Or a coffee table made from a pair of pants? Or an 8-foot-tall, bright red, fiberglass seating pod?Inside a graffitied brick warehouse a block from the Gowanus Canal, the team at John Creech Design & Production is making those dreams come true. Their company logo reads: “Our only limitation is your imagination,” and judging from their past work, they’re not exaggerating. JCDP builds the scenery for the Big Apple Circus and props for shows such as Broadway’s “The Lion King,” “Aida,” and “Wicked,” and television’s “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart.” The company has also built interiors for home-makeover shows such as “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” and TLC’s “Surprise By Design,” as well as one-of-a-kind objects for individual clients in search of unique pieces. “We’ve made a name for ourselves not just by making odd, crazy stuff,” said Mr. Creech, “but by doing it with the kind of craftsmanship that no one else can.”For the past few years, Mr. Creech has worked with the artist Virgil Marti to help him realize his whimsical designs.When Mr. Marti’s work was chosen for the 2004 Whitney Biennial, it was JCDP that helped him create a series of enormous chandeliers made from real deer antlers cast in baby-blue resin and trimmed with handmade flowers. Following Mr. Marti’s designs, the company also produced a number of oversize sconces in the shape of tortoiseshells, lined in faceted mirrored glass.Mr. Creech looks forward to such personal, individual assignments as an opportunity to experiment with new ways of working with creative materials, as well as to flex his own problem-solving skills. One recent client approached him to redesign the interior of her diminutive Upper East Side studio. Hoping to maximize what little space she had, Mr. Creech built a Murphy bed and a series of sliding partitions into the apartment’s walls, so that the small space could be transformed to take on different roles.Another family from Carroll Gardens called on Mr. Creech when they wanted to renovate their bathroom in the Mission style. He designed and built all of the oak cabinetry by hand to fit their home, then installed it himself. Some of Mr. Creech’s favorite projects have been personal – when his first son was born, he built him a one-of-a-kind cradle out of 64 unique wooden spindles. Each individual spindle was hand-stained a deep chocolate or bright honey brown, so that the rich grain of the wood would shine through.Mr. Creech, 42, moved to New York in 1990, after finishing a degree in production design at the North Carolina School of Art, in order to join his wife, Susan, then a student at Juilliard. His first job in New York was at Spaeth Design, the production team responsible for the famously intricate holiday windows at Saks Fifth Avenue, Lord & Taylor, and Macy’s.“Once I got to New York, everything happened very fast,” Mr. Creech said. “I came here with a lot of energy and a lot of confidence, and that made my clients very happy.” His work at Spaeth led to freelance projects for theater and television, including the cult favorite MTV comedy series “The State.” Throughout the show’s run, Mr. Creech produced all of the props and scenery, most of which was unconventional. One skit, set in a “sideways” house, called on him to build the interior of a suburban home that had been skewed by 90 degrees.“The State” lasted only three seasons, but in the process of working on it, Mr. Creech said, “I realized that I had a real business on my hands, and I needed my own place.” In 1994, he began to lease the space on Bond Street in Gowanus that would be his headquarters for the next decade. He was lucky to find a landlord who let him pay whatever he could afford while the business got off the ground. “As we grew, I raised my own rent,” Mr. Creech recalled. “Which, of course, my landlord appreciated.”At the beginning, Mr. Creech did almost all his projects solo, from the planning stage to the final coat of paint. But as his company’s reputation grew through word of mouth and the work he was offered grew more ambitious, he realized that to continue to succeed, he would need a talented team behind him. Right now, JCDP has a full-time staff of eight artisans who spend their days in the studio, welding, casting, sketching, building, sewing, sanding, and molding to make their clients’ visions come to life. “I like to say I am an amateur super-genius, but my crew, they are the real deal,” Mr. Creech said.When the company was hired to do interiors for the first season of “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,” they nominated one of their own men, Brian “Butch” Schepel, to be the “Fab Five’s” first victim. Though Butch is now back in his paint-stained jeans, the crew still teases him about the makeover.According to Mr. Creech, the company typically has about eight projects in the works at any given time, and often have more booked and waiting in the wings. Apparently, the business thrives on the frenetic pace; together, JCDP has created props for more than 70 Broadway shows and a number of television clients. The last few weeks have been spent in furious preparation for “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,” which premieres at New York’s Broadway Hilton theater on March 27.“I’m always eager to get into the fire,” Mr. Creech said with a smile. “Sometimes people will come to me with a really wild idea, and I feel like I just have to do it. Who could say no to something so crazy?”For more information on John Creech Design & Production, call 718-237-1144 or visit www.webuildeverything.com.

The Dream Factory

The Dream Factory

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