Found some video's and links for flat building.

Hollywood Flat:


Theater Flat:

Webpage resources:
http://www.school-video-news.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=264:building-flats&catid=42:set-design&Itemid=109
http://home.earthlink.net/~rowse/pgs/fltbldng.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flats_%28theatre%29

Thanks you two for the next ideas for next type of puppet theater I'll try to make. 

That kid in the second video was great!  He explained things very clearly!

Puppet Productions used to sell a stage similar to this:  http://www.puppets-etc.com/stage.htm.  They are super easy to make and take up very little space when storing.  If you make a few sandbags and put them over the bottom rails, you are pretty secure outdoors.

MsPuppet... that is a perfect example of what I meant about the first puppet stage I made with PVC pipe. You can see how the fabric is kind of stretched on the pipe frame. I wonder what they used as a hinge for the PVC panels?  It also kind of illustrates the concept of hinged wooden frames we used.

Shawn, we have a similar stage and I used zip-ties for the hinges and some duct tape on either side to keep them from sliding up and down.

I forgot to add, I think that particular stage they don't use a hinge, they just have a t on one side and a short piece of pipe on the other and snap them together when time to set up.

Zip-ties... aren't they just a wonderful invention!?

Zip-ties and duct tape!  What would we do without them?

And safety pins!
We did outdoor puppetshows at the park one summer and it always seemed to start blowing just when we were about to start the show. We made cement buckets with larger diameter pvc pipe in the cement as footers.  We used 1" Pvc pipe legs and slipped them into the footers.  The poles stayed put but the curtain still did the "sail" thing. We slipped large dowel rods into the hem of the curtain and had two parents stand on either side of the stage on the hems to hold it down. I always wanted to try slits in the curtain like banners use to let the wind go thru. We make white lattice frame over curtain tied to latice with zip ties in lots of spots, it held up well and looked great but took more time to put up.