Items from Storage and Other Odd Tales

We are lucky at The College at Brockport in that the Department of Theatre has a large storage space for our old sets, costumes and lighting equipment.

So much room in fact that sometimes it is too much and we save things that we will never use again.

I have built entire sets with the old walls and platforms from our storage with little need to build anything new but just altering a few things here and there.

Those shows are rare and the set for our current production, Coyote on a Fence, is a mixture of old and new set pieces.

http://www.brockport.edu/newsbureau/1698.html

COYOTE ON A FENCE

Most of the platforms and walls are from stock as well as some steel step units made back in 1990 for a summer production of 42^nd street.

Special for this play we did have to make 5 new 4x8 flats, two jail cell doors, two ship’s ladder stair cases and two small stage extension platforms on the side stage areas.

Much of this will go into our stock and fill up our space a bit more.

Back during the recent renovations to our building I was able to throw out a great deal of old stuff but somehow it has filled back up.

I am always surprised but what I still find that I did not know that we had saved and many times I wonder why we saved something in the first place.

Back in October I wrote about our production of Androcles and the Lion and how we still had the raked platform stage that we made for the production.

Recently I found a foam tree that was part of the show and after 25 years the foam has deteriorated to the point that it will crumble in your hands with little effort.

I took one last photo and it is headed for the trash.

We have some set pieces and furniture that seem to get used all the time just because they are just the right size.

There is a small settee that was here when I came and has been used endlessly.

It have been every color in the rainbow, stripped and repainted many times, had pieces added to it, broken, rebuilt and still lives on.

There is even a matching chair that gets used only about half as much.

Other popular pieces are always appearing onstage from our collection of bentwood chairs and small tables, both square and round.

The most difficult thing to find in our collection is four matching chairs.

People will sometimes donate things to the Theatre, but rarely is a full set.

I have added a number of wonderful  “Roadside Antiques” to our collection over the years, you know, junk from the curb.