Never be Afraid to Ask...Neon bar Sign

Another last minute prop added to a show was a neon, Schlitz bar sign for Always Patsy Cline. In my initial conversation with the director I had asked if he wanted anything like this to help signify the transition for kitchen to bar, and he didn't think he did. After some rehearsal though, he decided that is would be fun, and just the extra touch we needed. Unfortunately that left me without an extended period of time to lurk on ebay to find a good deal. I looked into some "buy it now" options, but they were all pretty far out of our budget.

The stage manager mentioned he could get us one on rental from a theatre he worked with, but in the end, once we multiplied the per-week rental by the length of our run, it would have been almost the cost of buying one.

Eventually it dawned on me that I already had the connection I needed to get a sign. One of my very best friends works for one of the biggest beer distributors in Chicago. He had mentioned, while we were hanging out draining Schlitz bottles for show props (it's a hard life), that Schlitz was one of their beers. I called him up, told him what I needed, and he left me a sign on my front porch the next morning. We were able to use the sign free of charge as long as we didn't damage it. It worked out great! Free advertising for Schlitz and a free beautiful piece of set decoration for us.