Student Blog: Why Sky-High Lumber Prices are a Big Deal

Before the pandemic that has so heavily affected the world of theatre, technical directors would get designs from designers, spend hours drafting and budgeting labor and materials, and begin constructing a set that later becomes the world of the production. Typically, this is a fairly straightforward process for the people who are experienced. But for the last year, things have been turning on their head.

Lumber is used in theatre most often because it's lightweight, easy to take apart and build back up again, straightforward to paint on, and cheap (compared to other materials like steel or aluminum). For centuries, lumber has essentially been the backbone of the theatre. Most productions will easily spend a large portion of their building budget on lumber alone. The reliance on lumber is what has been heavily impacting theatres, as the prices on sawn wood have skyrocketed over the course of 2020 and 2021.

The lumber shortage in America was caused early March 2020, when the Coronavirus was beginning to spread. Sawmills expected to have a giant housing crash, so they halted production and essentially shut down on the whole. However, the complete opposite happened; housing absolutely boomed, and in addition, DIY projects took the country by storm, creating a massive lumber shortage as stock was sold out across the U.S..

In my stagecraft course this past semester at UNCSA, our professor pulled up a sheet full of prices of lumber over the past few years. While prices had remained basically the same until 2020, (hovering around 1000 board-feet for between $200-$400), starting in spring 2020 prices hiked all the way up to 1000 board-feet for $1000. That is almost a 300% markup in prices. Not only has this had an enormous negative impact on the housing and DIY markets, but it's impaired the ability of many theatres to put together a cost-effective show. Frugality in budgeting is especially crucial in a time where many community-based performing arts centers are dependent on donations (in the absence of audiences,) those of which can't cover the exorbitant costs of lumber.

So is there light at the end of the tunnel? Yes, there is! Thanks to the vaccine, and sawmills opening back up, we're already seeing cash prices (the price of the lumber when sold from the sawmill directly to distributors like hardware stores) drop back to a bit above what they were before the pandemic. Now, it is much easier for bigger scene shops to purchase affordable lumber, and hopefully soon they will drop enough so that smaller theatres and community theatres will be able to construct economical sets again.

It should also be mentioned that amidst the lumber crisis, theatrical designers have done some excellent work either repurposing old sets or becoming creative in what materials are used for construction, now that productions with live audiences are becoming common again. While the lumber shortage certainly has caused a lot of problems, it has also proved that resilience and innovation can prevail in a time of drastic change.