"I'd like to get four sky hooks, two board stretchers, an air clamp, and six spray cans each of beam stop and DBG."
Some tools are absolutely crucial to do a certain job. It's simply impossible to 'do without' these essential items. Most of the time, this is simply a question of having a well-stocked toolkit.
However, theatre frequently presents scenarios that are, without exaggerating, thoroughly impossible. And that's where these tools come in. When you're asked to hang something in a place with no structural support in the vicinity, you send the newbie off to go get a few sky hooks. Board stretchers are fairly self explanatory, and are the usual go-to when the designer has built and painted the set before realizing it's a meter too short. Air clamps are the equivalent of sky hooks, but specially designed for attaching your truss full of expensive lights to the large amounts of nothing you've got available.
The lighting guys are most often in need of beam stop, since theatrical lights run excessively hot and need lots of ventilation, and where air can go, so can light. And that's just its maintenance use. It's amazing how often the damn designer imagines that you should be able to light the actor standing two meters in front of his set without lighting the set at all. And when your stock of beam stop is low and you try to do this by refocusing the lights, the director will immediately retaliate by demanding more light on the actors' faces. This is where you need the dark-be-gone, or 'DBG'. You did remember to buy more, right? Because next someone's going to complain that the table has a shadow under it...
What kind of materials do you make all this useful stuff out of, you ask? Well, I'm glad you did. There's that one material, you know the one, whose properties are exactly what's needed. It'll stop all the sound leakage while not reflecting anything, can be carried by one person and won't break. Ever. All while coming in at an under-budget price and, preferably, capable of supporting itself without needing bracing, rigging, or, hell, even legs. We call it unobtainium, and it comes from Faroffistan.