Today we’d like to introduce you to Sara Herman
Hi Sara, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
My background is in scenic design and painting for theater. I have worked for all of the main regional theaters in the Twin Cities area over the past 20 years and have always been sadden by how much scenery ends up in the dumpster after a show. When the pandemic hit, I had a lot of time to think about the habits of my industry and how we could change them to become more circular.
Some ideas I had to create a more circular economy were salvaging scenery items before they went in the dumpster by coordinating with theaters in advance of set strike. I also wanted to go around to scene shops in town to collect their scrap materials that were too small for them to use on scenery. These materials are perfect to make new products like cradled art panels or jewelry holders. Lastly, I wanted to have a marketplace for reclaimed and salvaged items alongside a prop and furniture rental warehouse.
I reached out to friends and colleagues to see if anyone else was interested in being a part of this still formulating idea and I had a great response. There ended up being about 5 people committed to being involved in the early stages of creating a business plan, a brand, and fine tuning the seedling ideas I had come up with.
That’s how Next Stage Rental and Market was born. Our mission is to reduce the amount of waste the local Twin Cities theater creates by salvaging what we can and making products with reclaimed materials. Our prop and furniture rental also majorly supports our mission by connecting theaters of all kinds with scenery, set dressing and props that already exist. This saves theaters money and storage space.
Next Stage is an employee owned company that opened in 2022. We are located in the back of the Deco building at 3300 5th St NE. We share our space with The Costume Collective.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It’s been challenging in many ways. Learning how to run a business was a bit of a hurdle as well as dealing with the unforeseen problems like a flood in our warehouse or a leaky roof.
Initially some of the bigger challenges had been convincing people and larger theaters to change their habits or at least devote a little extra budget for strike so things can be more easily salvaged. We are starting to see change happen though.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Next Stage Rental and Market?
Next Stage specializes in prop and furniture rental for the theater, events, weddings and holidays. We are different from other rental houses because the majority of our stock is salvaged or reclaimed from the local theater industry. We salvage materials like lumber, fabric and hardware for resale. We design and create new functional products from the materials we reclaim. Some of our products include reusable gift bags, tote bags, jewelry holders, crafts supplies and art panels. We can also make custom products from our reclaimed materials like signs, laser cutouts, and bags.
Who else deserves credit in your story?
We are so grateful to the local theater community, especially the educational theater community, who have supported us and our mission. Every week we get people telling us that they are so glad we exist and that’s a real boost!
Our teammates include Sadie Ward (former procurement manager), Annie Henly (volunteer), Abbey Ortiz (rental manager), Trevor Muller-Hegel (accountant), Lucy Hires (recycling and finance), Rebecca Tobin (marketing consultant) and Andy Ferris (inventory maintenance).
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.nextstagemarket.com/
- Instagram: @nextstagemarket
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nextstagemarket/
