When a production needs an old fashioned brush and hand mirror set with the metal dimmed so it’s not too shiny onstage, I’ve got it.  When I need to find an old-school wheelchair, I simply go to my basement.  After production upon production negotiating the safety of an antique wheelchair, when I saw one in my price range, I snatched it.  I never have to negotiate safe passage of a family heirloom wheelchair again.  Victorian couch… yep, got that too.  In fact, quite a bit of the furniture in my house was picked as much for its potential usability on stage as it was for how it fit into our décor.  Ever since The Glass Menagerie, I always pick up any little glass animals I see at yard sales for less than a quarter.  The only time it's impossible to find old-fashioned non-springy clothespins is when you need them for a production, so I keep those on hand too.  When I go to the dollar store and find a shape of an odd object inspiring, that gets added to the collection as well.  Such dollar store inspiration resulted in trees made from pool noodles and static hairy dusters when I designed Seussical. 

In addition to possible props, I also pack away things I think would be perfect for the right model piece.  I often do use these things, and when I do they save me time.  Then, of course, there are all of my painting and craft supplies, as well as my carpentry stuff. 

Recently my husband and I moved from Philadelphia, PA to Utica, NY.  During this move I realized that over half of my personal belongings are items I keep around just in case I need them for theatrical purposes.  If I were to quit theatre, we could live with at least 1,000 sq ft less storage.  We moved a lot of junk, but it was all really cool junk.  The day we moved, we ended up having to run back to the U-Haul place to rent a second truck.  It was a long, hard day of moving out.  At least our new house has a full unfinished basement and a full, walk-in attic for storing all my stuff.  I am often left pondering whether I chose this career so that I would have a scapegoat for my inner packrat.  Or, perhaps I chose this career because the packrat nature, which could be a liability in some careers, is transformed into a strength in this career. 

My husband was known to horde used computers during his high school years to the point that he used both the entirety of under his bed and half of the top of his bed for storage and slept next to computers every night.  Since growing up he seems to have lost this instinct, and seems baffled by my ability to fill such large amounts of storage space.  He’s incredibly accommodating. 

I know theatrical folk who are not packrats, and they seem to get along just fine.  Yet, I can’t imagine getting to a point when building a model where I need just the right shaped bead to create the perfect finial, but needing to run to the craft store to get it.  I don’t know how they do it.  I have found my packrat tendencies to be very helpful in my career. 

Next time we move I think I will submit to hosting a yard sale before the move.  However, until then, long live the packrat!

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