Volunteers sort, organize Playhouse props during today's Idora cleanup

YOUNGSTOWN

If Act I was about reorganizing and rearranging old props and Act II centered on making aesthetic improvements, then you could safely say the show’s main themes were community improvement and strengthening partnerships.

“We see the [Youngstown] Playhouse as a tremendous anchor in the community,” said Jack Daugherty, the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp.’s neighborhood stabilization director. “We want to help the Playhouse realize its full potential to Youngstown’s neighborhoods.”

Daugherty spent time in a warehouse on the property carefully hoisting a series of antique wooden chairs to a narrow loft that also contained old desks, bureaus and cabinets, then carefully organizing the furniture. Both duties were the main parts of volunteer work he performed during a neighborhood cleanup effort Saturday at the Playhouse, off Glenwood Avenue just south of downtown.

A primary aim of the cleanup, which was the latest of YNDC’s monthly workdays, was to fight blight as part of an effort to beautify the city’s Idora Neighborhood. Inclement weather prevented outdoor work from being done, however.

Twenty-five to 30 volunteers, including Youngstown State University students, were in the warehouse and backstage organizing or discarding numerous large and small props that had been used as stage sets.

A walk through the musty upper and lower levels of the building reveals stacks of largely donated items that have been used on sets of plays, such as barber and salon chairs, a small organ, a radio from the 1930s, vintage TVs, old appliances, manual and electric typewriters, dishware and cookware, curio cases, wine bottles, hat bags and even a Pictionary game.

Read more about the event in Sunday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.