Furniture Pull

This morning I'm meeting at a helpful theater's warehouse to pull furniture for my up-coming show Ruth, at Kitchen Dog.

It's a huge, HUGE help to poor and struggling theaters (i.e. all theaters) when those with furniture, props, or other assets share their wealth.  I am, personally, grateful for these loans.  It doesn't just improve a show, often it makes it possible.  Especially for period work.

In KD's In the Next Room: the Vibrator Play even the impressive legs of the doctor's table were loaners.  Sure, we could have built that table without 'em, but it wouldn't have looked nearly as solidly, Victorianly, authoritative as that exam table HAD to look - appearing a very Altar in the Temple of Science.

Those legs helped both sell this Doc's authority... and make the sexy carryings-on funnier.

In Fort Worth - enlightened theater world! - one university shares a warehouse with many theaters.  All put furniture in it, all are welcome to borrow it out again, with a simple sign-out book and an honor system.  Dallas?  Nope.  Few theaters can afford a warehouse, but if you call around, many kind groups, schools, or individuals will offer what you need.  (I've had sofas out of living rooms sometimes!)  Theatre Three is particularly kind and helpful and rich in furniture.  Thank you Theatre Three!

Now look again at that photo of In the Next Room...

In the Next Room: the Vibrator Play - photo by Matt Mrozek

See the handsome antique cabinet on the upstage wall?  Holding medical books and instruments?  It helps set the time period, reinforces the doctor's wealth and authority - literally gives him weight - plus it's the only real piece of furniture in the room, almost on the set, so scenically it's quite valuable... (And, as a designer, I love that it has fat corner "legs" too, so it talks to my table.  It's funny.)

Wouldn't be allowed to borrow that this year.

For some reason - no one's been told why - the Dallas Theater Center, which has a grand and very rich storehouse of furniture and props (paid for, in part, by tax money and in tiny part by my ticket purchases over the years)... Well, they've stopped loaning out.

No loans.  Nobody.

This is a great loss.  I'm very grateful for their furniture over the last decade, as I know many many other designers and theaters are, all around town.  The Dallas Theater Center's stock has enriched plays in the entire region.  They have by far, by multiples of tens and hundreds or thousands, the budget for furniture of any other theater in Dallas, Fort Worth, or all the cities around.  Their warehouse is a treasure trove!  I'm sure their generosity cost some time, but... surely the flagship of Dallas theater thinks supporting this region's theater is worthwhile?

I'm heart-sick that DTC's generous lending has stopped.

I wish the Dallas Theater Center would reconsider.  Please loan out to us little guys again.  We may be poorer, but we do good theater too.  We would appreciate your help.

(More on furniture: Return of the Dreaded Sofa and Pulling Furniture, an earlier post on the topic.)

The Dreaded Sofa

Looked for a sofa today.  One of the hardest things to find for a theater set is a sofa.

If a theater has a warehouse, they don't like to waste space storing sofas.  If they don't... where would they?  Chairs, tables, even beds can stack, hang, come apart for storage... but not a couch.  So there are few stock sofas.  Borrowing a davenport from civilians is also iffy - people miss their sofa if they loan it out.  Besides, what if you ruin it onstage or in transit, and have to replace it?  A sofa is bulky, awkward, and, inevitably, has to be carried downstairs.  And turns out to be a sofa bed - built of concrete and cast iron.

But sofas are specific in style.  They matter!  A designer can't use any old thing.  Yet loaners are rare, rentals are expensive, and reupholstering one to fit your scenic design is a major and expensive chore requiring Advanced Skills.

Sofas! 

Hate 'em.

Except for this one, the "Climbing Settee" by Lila Lang.  See it here at Decorfair.  So cool  I have to love it.

Pulling Furniture

Theater warehouses are like dusty, rather mildew-smelling Aladdin's Caves.

Universally ill-lit and with narrow aisles, a theater warehouse is always piled rafters high with a motley collection of furniture: some of it real antiques come on hard times; some of it humble pieces jazzed up with trim and new upholstery, like an actor in stage makeup and costumes; and some of it built for a show and hanging on to help out, like many stage crew.