Christmas Puppet Theatre

A few months back while visiting Jessie’s Kitchen, our favourite place from brunch on a Sunday, Sofia was enjoying playing with a wooden play theatre in the play area and that gave me an idea for this year’s Christmas toy…

I thought I could take this design and improve on it by making a larger theatre with a fold down stage apron and side tormentors on which scenes could hang.

So I set about coming up with a design that would do this, yet still fold away flat for storage (as all parents know this is extremely important!).

So idea in mind, off to Wickes for some cheap timber, which along with an old bit of plywood I had all I needed to build the prototype frame…

Once I had the hinges and angles all worked out, it was time to add a bit of shape to the frame

And then to face this off some 6mm mdf sheeting…

I decided to create a storage box / stage front for under the apron of the stage…

Now it was time to start thinking about the surface finishes and in proper theatre style I decided to use black felt

I had a box of railway curves (flat wooden drawing shapes of various radius used by draughtsmen years ago) which my dad had given me when he retired, I decided to use a few of these to create the detail on the proscenium arch.

A little bit of electronics and some LED strip added a nice lighting effect.

A few glittery details and I was nearly finished.

The final part was to print some backdrops and laminate these onto hardboard.

And yes, it will still fold away for storage!