Introducing the CueCall Marketplace: Rent Costumes, Props & Sets from Other Theatres
Stop buying or building everything from scratch. The new CueCall Marketplace lets theatre companies rent costumes, props, and set pieces from each other — and earn back the cost of idle storage.
· By CueCall Team
Topics: marketplace, rentals, costumes, props, set pieces, community theater, theater management, production budget
Every theatre company knows the feeling. You're three weeks from opening and you still need a Victorian fainting couch, a working grandfather clock, and a dozen period gowns. Buying them blows the budget. Building them blows the schedule. And the moment the show closes, they go straight into a storage unit to gather dust until... maybe never.
Meanwhile, the company across town has exactly the couch you need sitting in their storage unit.
That's the problem the new CueCall Marketplace solves. It connects theatre companies so you can rent the pieces you need from each other — and turn your own idle inventory into income.
What the Marketplace Does
The Marketplace is a place for theatres to share resources. Instead of every company independently buying or building the same costumes, props, and set pieces, you can borrow from the companies around you and lend out what you're not using.
Here's what you can do today:
- Browse listings from other theatres. Search costumes, props, and set pieces that other companies have made available, with photos and details.
- List your own inventory. Mark items in your inventory as available to rent. That period wardrobe from last season can start paying for itself.
- Send and manage rental requests. Request an item, message the owner, and track the whole conversation in one place — no scattered email threads.
- Keep everything connected. Items you rent in flow straight into your show's inventory, your budget as an expense, and your return tracking so nothing gets lost or returned late.
Why This Matters for Your Budget
Production budgets are tight, especially for community and school theatre. A single costume can run a hundred dollars or more; a custom set piece, far more. Renting instead of buying can cut a show's physical-production costs dramatically — and listing your own pieces turns a sunk cost into a small revenue stream that helps fund your next show.
It's also greener and saner. The theatre world is full of beautiful, well-built pieces that are used for a three-weekend run and then never again. Sharing them across companies means less waste, less duplicated effort, and more money going toward what's on stage.
Built for Theatre Companies
The Marketplace works hand-in-hand with CueCall's new company accounts. When your theatre operates as an organization in CueCall, your members share a common inventory pool — so the items your stage manager adds show up for your director, and anything you post to the Marketplace lands in the shared pool automatically. Items you rent in from other companies appear there too.
That means the Marketplace isn't a separate silo. It's woven into the same scene-centric workflow you already use to run your show: inventory, budget, scheduling, and returns all stay in sync.
Getting Started
The Marketplace is available now. To start renting and listing:
- Open the Marketplace from your sidebar.
- Set up your organization with a name and ZIP code (your location is what lets nearby theatres find your listings).
- Mark inventory items as available to rent, or browse what other companies have posted.
Your first two shows on CueCall are free for a full year each — so you can explore the Marketplace, manage your production, and coordinate your whole team without spending a dollar.
Ready to stop buying what you could borrow? Get started at cuecall.app and see what the theatres around you have to share.