I've been slooooowly putting together a puppet show, The Carrot Seed, for local nursery schools. I finally finished the backdrop, with my little plastic house in front, to make a three-dimensional stage area.

I painted in a couple pictures and a couch behind the house, so that when the door and windows are open, the audience will see an interior scene.


Karabas Barabas is showing the size of the stage, relative to the puppets. In the show, the little boy will stand in front of the house, his father and mother will do their parts at the front door "inside" the house. The big brother will lean out from the side of the house (at the gray stair steps) as if there is a side door to the house.

Now I just have to make two puppets . . . oh yes, and a giant carrot!

Nice!  It has a lot of colour to keep the kids eyes focus.....what style of puppets are you planning to use.....it seems to be uncomfortable hiding behind the house since it seems so low......I hope you get some pictures of you performing the production......it looks like you are going to have some fun. 

Keep us informed as you go along.....

Daryl H

You did a great job on this...Thanks for sharing.

Billy D.

Cool. I like it. I need to start doing something like that for the puppet presentation for the church.

Thanks for sharing!

what style of puppets are you planning to use.....it seems to be uncomfortable hiding behind the house since it seems so low......

I'm planning on using rod-arm puppets. I guess it's the picture, because as it is currently set up, it's actually a little high up! The top of the backdrop is about 7-1/2 feet high, here. Space will be a little tight, there will be at least three (ideally four) of us behind a front curtain, but I've put as many as six behind the same size curtain before. We just have to cooperate.  

Three of the puppeteers will not have to change position much, and will be behind the fourth puppeteer who will move back and forth across the stage. I'll probably build a rolling stool for that one, to make the motion smoother and easier.

What I have done in the past when shifting from one puppet to another is have one of the puppeteers in position behind the backdrop, the other onstage. The onstage puppet exits, the onstage puppeteer moves straight back while the offstage puppeteer moves straight forward, and they can change positions in only about a second. With a little practice, it gets very smooth.

Looking at the pictures again, I think I see the problem you were looking at. The picture is carefully cropped, because I didn't have a front curtain up. That curtain is about 4 1/2 feet high, up to the bottom of the house. That gives plenty of puppeteer room behind the house.