Boredom Buster: Become a Puppeteer #1

Building a theater:
Creating a Puppet Theater can be a wonderful craft with a few supplies. It can be used to incorporate the fun of crafting with the expansion of literature. I have one little one still so… we won’t be doing Shakespeare quite yet. Just remember to keep it simple in order to keep the interest of little ones (puppet/scene making and the stories used). You can let your imagination carry you away. My daughters suggested having actual shows that we invite people to.
I am all for creativity, but to make things nice sometimes it seems like we need to spend money.  My husband came up with the plan for the theatre that I built, all with supplies that we already had.  The price couldn’t have been any better…. free.  
First I sat down with my husband and we talked about what I wanted out of this theatre.

• Portability.  It being small enough to take to our parents homes, for future shows, with simple breakdown and rebuild that I could handle by myself.
  
• A Stage.  In the case that the kids might want to use props they would be able to enhance their shows with them.
  
• Space for a Backdrop.  I think plays that have scenes in the background really help you see the whole picture better, especially for kids.
  
• Free.  I didn’t want it to cost anything if possible.
  
• Simple.  I wanted to be able to build it myself without help. I knew that if it is simple enough for me to build, that anyone reading this could do it too.

Next we talked about the materials and he drew out a plan for me to build.

• Large Box.  We used our flat screen TV box.
  
• A Marker.
  
• A Ruler
  
• Masking Tape
  
• Box Cutter
  
• Scissors

The Plan

I Drew the pattern onto the box.

• 5” in from the top and bottom and 7” in from each side.
  
• Breaking the vertical lines inside the inner box into thirds.
  
• Bisected the center piece. 
  
• Now our box opened at the top so we placed the flaps at the bottom, we will add weights to them later to hold the theatre in place.
  
• Bisected the bottom half of the center piece

With the Box Cutter I cut along all of the blue lines.
I folded along all of the green lines.  There will be a small piece left over.
Next Step to work on the back of the box.

• Making a rectangle on my box by drawing lines 5” in from the top and bottom,and 7” in from the sides.
  
• Using my box cutter I cut out my rectangle.

Back to the front now.  I measure the width of the opening of the box, horizontally.  I measure the depth of the stage area and the depth of the ceiling area.  We need to fill in the gaps, the stage and ceiling need to be up against the wall piece for structural support.
Using the scrap piece I took out from the back of the box, I measure out two strips.

1. Depth of the stage by the Width of the box opening
   
2. Depth of the ceiling by the Width of the box opening.

  Then I tape the strips I just cut along the underside of the ceiling and the stage pieces.  I then am able to tape the walls against the ceiling and stage pieces and I have made a complete opening.

From the back:

From the front:

In Boredom Buster:  Become a Puppeteer #2

• Priming and Decorating Theater.
  
• Hanging a curtain on the front and for backstage.

In Boredom Buster:  Become a Puppeteer #3

• How to make puppets and costumes.
  
• Choosing Stories to play out.