FEB
23

Easy and Inexpensive Traveling Sets

By Margaret F. Johnson 

During her thirty-seven years as a drama teacher, Margaret F. Johnson directed over 190 productions and served as the Montana State Thespian Director from 1972 to 1992.  Margaret is also the author of The Drama Teacher’s Survival Guide and its sequel. 

Who would have thought that a half dozen music stands, some window shades, and some wire would be our low-budget answer to taking our children’s show on the road?

Traveling sets can be made from almost anything:  window shades, cardboard, butcher paper, or found objects in the drama department.  Most of us work with limited budgets so of course money is always a concern.  Simplicity becomes the key word.  Here are two incredibly simple techniques that both received positive receptions from the audience.

Window Shades

Many years ago, the high school where I taught was invited to perform Eleanor Harder’s Beauty and the Lonely Beast on the main stage of our state Thespian Conference.  It required two sets, one for Beauty’s dilapidated house and the other for palace.  Any sets we brought had to travel with us in our luggage, since there was no money for elaborate scenery that could be trucked or shipped.  The sets also had to be incredibly simple because there was no time between productions for set up.

We started with three plastic coated window shades (these are stronger than the regular shades and are washable) and acrylic paint, which has a plastic base that will adhere to the shade.  We created the two scenes by using both the front and the back of the shades.  Before any design was painted on the shades, we made a drawing to scale on graph paper.  For the old, rundown house, my students decided to paint the shades with cracks, to give the idea that plaster was falling off the walls.  For the Prince’s palace, they used three French provincial panels, one on each shade, all painted in gold.

Next, we borrowed six music stands from a local school.  We took the tops off the music stands and raised them as high as they would go.  We then fixed a piece of wire to each shade and hung it from the top of two stands.  This suspended the shades on the music stands so we could unroll them.  Depending on your budget, you could also build a self-standing frame out of PVC piping.

The challenge still remained how to first reveal, and then change, the sets.  With the author’s permission, we added two cats to the cast of the play.  Besides proving indispensable as “CATchers” when our fairy godmother, on roller skates, flew down the 100-foot aisle of the theater, they were also instrumental in changing our sets.  The play opened in Beauty’s house, and the action of rolling the shades down, then up, and turning them around was incorporated into the play.  The cats came in, placed the music stands where they were to go, of course making mistakes and having to correct each other.  They then argued with delightful silent animation about which shade to put on which music stand.  They finally rolled down the shades, revealing Beauty’s house, and all this took just about a minute.  The same kind of miming continued when they rolled up the shades and when they turned them and unrolled them for the Prince’s palace.

Poster Board Cubes

We were asked on another occasion to perform a 30-minute presentation at the International Thespian Conference.  I had only six students who were able to attend, so we chose to do a cutting from Thurber Carnival.  For those of you not familiar with this show, it’s a revue of 16 sketches and also incorporates several of Thurber’s drawings.  Unfortunately, projection wasn’t an option for our traveling show, so once again, we had to come up with a creative alternative.  We meticulously transferred Thurber’s line drawings in black marker to 12 pieces of large poster board.  We punched five holes into each side of each piece of poster board.  Since poster board is obviously flat, traveling was a breeze.  We simply carried the poster board in a large plastic bag.  Once we arrived at the conference, we laced six pieces of poster board into a cube with black yarn, quickly converting flat poster board into a three-dimensional, self-standing presentation.  As we performed each new sketch, we turned the boxes to illustrate that particular story.

This poster board cube idea could also be used effectively in other children’s theatre, whether for designs of wall or trees or other settings.  As an example, think how easily The Three Little Pigs tale could be told as the cubes rotated to show first hay, then sticks, then bricks for the three houses.  As the wolf huffs and puffs and blows the houses down, the cubes could even “blow” across the stage.

Incidentally, as long as you’ve designed a traveling show, think about creating more opportunities for your students to perform it by reaching out to other places.  With Beauty and the Lonely Beast, we contacted Portland’s Shriners Hospital for Children and performed the show there.  Producing children’s shows at hospitals, grade schools, and day cares is a wonderful way for your students to share their talent as well as getting your drama department out in the community and introducing younger children to the magic of theatre.  Not only will your cast benefit from more performance opportunities, you’ll also expand your community’s awareness of your drama department, and that’s always a good thing.