If Banners Are Your Bag…

For each major play produced at the College, the Theatre Department has a promotional banner made to be hoisted above the entrance to Seaver Theatre for a few weeks prior to opening night. But where does that banner go once the play is over? That was what Suzanne Reed, the department’s costume shop manager, wondered—so she asked. The answer turned out to be: the trash can. So Reed outlined a recycling idea. What if she transformed each banner into tote bags for some of the play’s principals as a parting memento of their performance? And that’s just what she’s done following the last few plays, the most recent being last fall’s production of Nikolai Gogol’s The Government Inspector. To make the recycling process complete, the chain sewn into the bottom of the banner to give it weight is now returned to the banner company to be used again in a future banner.