When you are putting on a play, the most important thing to get right is the action. With the right actors, the audience are going to be transported to any time and place that you wish to create simply by the lines the cast deliver and the way in which they deliver them.
However, we are all well aware that finding such great talent is not always that easy. And unless you have a huge budget to undertake a vast auditioning process and the wages that the very best talent will command, then the chances are that the play you put on, whilst perhaps exceptional, might not be able to eschew such luxuries as authentic props and theatre sets.
Even in the very best of plays, it will often be the small touches that really make the play stand out. Whilst excellent acting can create the illusion that a blank space is filled with all manner of items and that mimes are actually the tasks they represent, having a set that is poorly constructed or finished will actually serve as a distraction and can in some ways be detrimental. Therefore, unless you wish to have an extremely minimalist stage and rely wholly on the acting, it is important that any prop and the theatre sets themselves are as well made as possible.
Incongruous props will instantly take an audience out of the moment no matter how effective any performance is. However, this doesn’t always mean that you have to enlist the very best set designers to do such work. Instead, simply hiring any prop you might need along with the vast majority of the set itself can ensure that you get exactly what you need at what can be a very low cost. In turn, no one will be distracted from any amazing performances, and even weaker performances may well be boosted in the process.