Hi there I'm new here and already asking for help. I already built a wooden folding stage but I used heavy wood and large cuts now it was fine when there was just three of us and we didn't travel much but now we have 15 puppeteers so I have to rebuild. With some new design areas. It needs to be light but durable. Have a lower and higher tier. Now here is the difficult bit we have two new puppets a dragon and a snail. Both supposed to be vent puppets but as I am just learning to be a ventriloquist I don't perform with them yet. I have tried getting behind the stage with the dragon and its impossible I managed to get one of my puppeteers to carry the dragon in asleep with mask. I then from the back of the stage managed to get my hand through and work him through the stage him sat in front. The angle and lack of being able to see what I was doing made me suffer. I would like to build an add on platform that can be set up linked to lower tier that the dragon can be sat on then I would stand behind the second tier curtain put my hand through a special curtain (black) so you would not see my body. Has any one seen plans like this if not would you be interested in seeing them if I design it?

Let me say first that while I do admire the talents of ventriloquist and think it is admirable that you are learning the art, I think you could preform the puppet and not worry about moving your lips.  Children won't even notice if your lips move.   I've done it in the past with both hand in mouth "Muppet" style puppets and with my marionettes.

What type of materials do you have available to you in South Africa? Can you easily get PVC pipe that is used for water pipes and the joints used to connect them? That is what a lot of puppeteers in the US and Europe use for their stages. It is light wieght and you can hang different colored curtains off of them.  Here is a very basic design example. http://www.play-script-and-song.com/pipe-puppet-stage.html  and another http://www.dougledbetter.org/howto/puppet_stage/  Here is a link to where you can actually  buy the plans for one or even pre-made. http://www.puppets-etc.com/stage.htm

We have everything including pvc I will draw my own design based on that and put it up to see what everyone thinks

Cool!  Can't wait to see your plans for your new stage.