Reclaimed Stage Manager

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.

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Post-it Notes? Um… yeah we have a couple.

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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.

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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.

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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…

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[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?

North of the Boulevard

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