As Assistant Stage Manager at Theatre Exile this season, I [Flora] tend to think of The Resource Exchange as my personal prop warehouse. Materials I’ve purchased at the shop have sneaked into shows throughout the season. A deadly fax print-out — pivotal to the action of The North Plan by Jason Wells, which Exile produced at the Latvian Society in February — just might have been office paperwork saved from a film set in NYC. This time around, we [Theatre Exile] are premiering North of the Boulevard, a new play by Bruce Graham! Complete with McDonald’s cups from The Resource Exchange. You really never know what you might find…
But RE isn’t just a great source for props and set building materials. Most of my stage management kit comes from the shop as well. Highlighters? Check.
Post-it Notes? Um… yeah we have a couple.
Theatre Exile’s Stage Manager, Lindsay Galbraith, taught me how to use plastic sheet protectors [from RE] and dry-erase markers to create a line note book to help the actors learn their lines. I love this method, as it eliminates the need for printing line notes! The sheet protectors for North of the Boulevard‘s line note book came from RE.
Because North of the Boulevard is a new play, we introduced new or changed pages of the script throughout the rehearsal process. These new pages were printed on brightly-colored paper to make sure all actors and production staff were, you know… on the same page.
With RE’s stockpile of unused, reclaimed colored paper — all from a recent television show — new play developers have access to all the colored paper they could ever need! And don’t even get me started on binders…
[We’ve got to put all those scripts somewhere!]
Just goes to show — The Resource Exchange is great for your on- AND off-stage needs. While we save a lot of material from film and theater sets, we also save material from the production offices that organize them! So if you’re organizing a production of your own, be sure to stop by. Why buy new when you can get it at RE for half price?
Good question.
PS — Now that you’ve seen the stage management, why not see the show?
World Premiere
By Bruce Graham
Author of Exile’s Belmont Avenue Social Club & The Philly Fan
“A man works, he ought to get something back.”
From the razor-sharp wit of Bruce Graham comes a blue collar comedy about a decaying garage in a declining neighborhood. Three childhood friends and a cantankerous old man struggle to make sense of their dead-end lives. Living on pipe dreams, they seek the opportunities lying dormant just over the boulevard. But when a chance event gives them the opportunity to get out of their crumbling neighborhood, morality may have to take a backseat to prosperity.
Featuring Scott Greer, Brian McCann, Bill Rahill and Lindsay Smiling
Directed by Matt Pfeiffer
Apr 18 – May 19
Theatre Exile’s Studio X
1340 South 13th Street (13th and Reed Sts.)
Philadelphia, PA 19147
