TV's Joan of Arcadia Creates Bookstore Set -- God & Book Sense Return

Joan of Arcadia, the award-winning CBS dramedy, returned last week for its second season of spiritual, sexual, and ethical turmoil. The independent bookstore -- where in the first season the teenaged Joan, played by actor Amber Tamblyn, was instructed by God to work -- is the venue for some of the premiere episode's most compelling action. But observant viewers will notice that not only has Joan Girardi's hairstyle been revamped, so has the bookstore. While the bookstore still looks like an independent Book Sense store, it is really a meticulously fabricated set.

For the first season, all bookstore footage was filmed at Skylight Books, the seven-year-old store in Los Angeles. General manager Kerry Slattery told BTW at the time that the store had frequently been used for shoots because of its high ceilings and spacious feel. Joan of Arcadia's production designer, Bill Eigenbrodt of Canterbury Productions, told BTW that an independent like Skylight was considered a great location in part because it, unlike large chain stores, "has a distinct visual personality." Slattery mentioned that Skylight limited its involvement with film shoots because the disruption and closings are "hard on the customers."

The show's art director, Gary Meyers of Canterbury Productions, understood how the scale of the Joan of Arcadia production would impact the store and the neighborhood. In a recent conversation with BTW, Meyers said, "We love Skylight Books and shop there. But there were logistical difficulties, mostly in the neighborhood -- the neighborhood is fine -- it's us and our 40-foot trucks that created problems. We knew that we were inconveniencing a lot of people. We had access to a set and reconverted it into a bookstore."

Able to construct an archetypal bookstore, Meyers and company spread things out quite a bit. He also wanted to use materials more common on the East Coast, such as brick, since the fictional town of Arcadia is in Maryland. "Buildings are different in the east," Meyers said. "Everything in California is so new -- I wanted the store to have a lot of brick, which is more typical of the older buildings. Our back story was that this was an existing building that had been four things before it was a bookstore. For the interior design, we attempted to make it as close to an actual store as possible -- we used the same color of wood that is very common for bookstore shelves -- raw birch."

Attached to those shelves and sitting on the counters are a number of authentic Book Sense shelf-talkers, counter cards, and Top Ten and Bestseller lists. "Those things create an all over feel," Meyers said. The set designers did not attempt to create an exact match of Skylight Books, Meyer continued. "We feel that a store like that has an identity, and we want to respect that individual identity."
Were all those books real? Meyers explained that "television is a pragmatic game. We get what's needed as per the script. Specific episodes have their own requirements. We needed a psychology section and a children's section. We bought books, we rented books, we researched what books would be on the shelves."

Not shown on camera was the Religion Section, where God -- actor Kris Lemche, in the earthly trappings of "the cute boy" -- patiently whiled away time as Joan attempted to close the store. God is a challenging customer: As they walked away from the store, he handed Joan a small book he palmed while browsing. The book is Howards End, by E.M. Forster, and it contains some relevance to Joan. "You stole that," Joan said irritably. "Technically," replied God, "it's all mine."

(To read more about Skylight Books and the first season of Joan of Arcadia, click here.) --Nomi Schwartz