Richard Foreman, the aged avant-garde theater idol, has hit upon a new scheme: selling off his props. He's lucky, because he is in a unique position to actually ask nice prices for those props, for two reasons.
One is that he's Richard Foreman. Although I'm still of the opinion that his best work is behind him, there's no denying that he's a very smart theatermaker, and his future projects always have the potential to impress and create. And he's a big, connected name. So there's a big group of wealthy folks who might buy the objects out of support of Richard Foreman.
The other is that Foreman's prop designers (I know one is named Meghan Buchanan, I don't know if there are any others) are fantastic. Foreman has always been a visually stunning director, and places a large emphasis on artistly baffling and interesting objects in his theater.
Of course, because Richard Foreman is unique in this position, you might not see a lot of that going on. Broadway shows might be able to get away with it, but of course, they're for-profit, so it's somewhat a different beast. On the other hand, if a show puts enough effort into its design, and a theater company sticks around for a while, they might be able to pull off the same feat. For instance, if Elevator Repair Service had some well-crafted props, I'm sure they could find a decent price.
This, by the way, reminds me of the far more interesting Democracy in America auction: the content of the show itself was sold off to interested bidders. It goes up March 30, so I'll check back to say how that show was.
