Tag: Childrens

by David Burgess on May 8, 2018 0

Playwright Zoo

Zoo playwriting?

A resource linking you to some of the coolest new trends as well as classics particular to playwrights and their craft. — And check out the Playwright Zoo Archive for past musings and featured artists.

Polar Bears

The coolest.
Michael R. McGuire is one of the playwrights whose opinion I trust. He’s a theater artist working within his community as a major contributor to the local arts scene in New London, Connecticut. He is a self-taught self-starter who also helps other theater-artists see their work produced. I’ve know Mike for a few decades, and we’ve worked together to co-produce new-play festivals and full-up productions. He founded a playwrights group that meets regularly throughout the year where members bring new work to have it read and discussed (then we all go out for food and beer). He’s the kind of guy you want to have around when you’re trying to get a new piece on its feet. Everybody should have a friend like Mike.

Michael R. McGuire has written plays for the past 16 years. His play SOMETIMES I FEEL LIKE I MISSED THE TRAIN was part of The Lark’s 2004 Playwrights Week and showcased by The Planning Stage at The Golden Street Gallery in 2006. He was awarded a CT Artist Fellowship in 2005 for his play THE NEW GIRL with which he produced a showcase at the Avery Point Playhouse. His plays PERSEPHONE RULES! and THE MISJUDGMENT OF OENONE are published by Brooklyn Publishers.

McGuire founded the playwrights reading group Writers’ Roundtable in 2000.

The interview:

Michael R. McGuire – why the “R”?

There is another playwright in America named Michael McGuire. We were getting one another’s rejection letters returned. The other McGuire has been around longer so I added my middle initial. Plus, it sounds cooler.

You’re a playwright based in Southeastern Connecticut. What are some of the challenges to you as a playwright not being in a big city?

The biggest challenge is the lack of opportunity to network with theater professionals. Literary managers have no face to put with my name. Of course this might also be an advantage…

What are the benefits?

I enjoy being an outsider. Because so many playwrights live in NY, they tend to have a New York sensibility. My New London, CT sensibility is a bit different and informs my writing.

Living in a small arts community like New London County, how essential to you and your work has been the acquisition of production skills?

I have produced, directed and also acted in many of my own productions. It is essential for a playwright to see the work in front of an audience. If opportunities do not present themselves, you must create them.

What makes you want to produce the works of others as well as your own?

I sometimes come across a script that I simply must see on stage. Your play TO DIE FOR WANT OF LOBSTER was one of these. (That it had a great role for me had nothing to do with it)

I do not consider myself an especially skilled director of the works of others and prefer to leave that to others when I can.

Being outside of the mainstream loops and circles that life in New York or another theater hub could offer, how do you get your work out there? Do you have a marketing plan? If so, how does it work?

I wouldn’t call it a plan so much as a dogged tenacity to submit my work to every theater I can find that might be appropriate. In addition to Dramatists Sourcebook, I also search online and scour the resumes of playwrights I admire for theaters they began in.

I keep a database of all my submissions and mail frequently. How does it work? I’m not so sure it does!

While the stereotype of the struggling playwright places him/her in a room, alone, flushing out genius across pages, waiting for discovery – how does it really work from your experience? Are you alone or do you depend on others?

I write in coffee shops. I need a bit of hubbub to write. Silence is deadly to me. I read a great deal and consider all writing as part of a larger conversation. Nothing is created in a vacuum. Our playwrights group Writers’ Roundtable has been a valuable resource for feedback and inspiration.

How did you find other artists in your small-town community to work on your plays?

Mine is a theater-heavy small-town due, in part, to our proximity to The O’Neill. New London has an artistically thriving if financially struggling community. I am also fortunate to have an actress girlfriend, Heidi Harger, who has inspired imagery for more than one of my plays.

What resources are do you use to expand your knowledge of writing? What’s available when you’re off the beaten path?
Given Amazon.com everything that is available elsewhere is available here. The works of Gary Garrison, Jeffery Sweet and Stuart Spenser have been valuable, especially early on. Reading the works of current playwrights has also been important. I have to travel a bit to see professional theater, but every playwright should watch live theater.

You recently participated in a 24-hour play experiment, which was the first of it’s kind in the New London area – what was that like? What was unexpected?

We were given an assignment in the evening and had to have a 10 page play written by morning. The plays were handed off to randomly selected actors and director who rehearsed and had the play before an audience that night. It was fun for me because I didn’t have to direct it myself, a rare treat.

Unexpectedly my director, unknown to me before the project, is interested in an on-going collaboration on future plays.

You’ve also participated in the now defunct Local Playwrights Festival at the O’Neill Theater Center, which was produced and performed by all Connecticut and Rhode Island based volunteers to present workshops of plays by local authors – how relevant was that earlier experience for you?

Having an early play (WHAT’S GONNA SET YOU FREE?) selected for that festival was the encouragement I needed at that time to let me know I might be in the right business. It also introduced me to other playwrights and the local theater community at large. It is impossible to overstate the importance of that event. You may blame them for all my subsequent scribbling.

Any plans for the short play that came out of that?

I’m not much of a short play writer in general, but I may send it out here and there.

What are some recommend reads for playwrights?

I mentioned some writers above, and of course read any play you can get your hands on, but also read magazines, novels, comic books, essays and everything else. Ideas are everywhere. I could live ten lifetimes and not run out of ideas.

What do you recommend a playwright order from the bar when being taken out after a showing of one of his/her plays?

If the show went well, have a Guiness or two. Remain sober enough to absorb the praise. If the show went poorly, start pounding whiskey. I accept no responsibility for anyone who follows this advice.

Anything else?

Learn the rules and then break them with style.

The Monkey House

Musings on the state of theater-arts

A Playwright & Web Forums: How to Use Them for the POWER OF GOOD
(your good & others)
from the mind of Kato McNickle

There are a lot of playwright specific forums, groups on Facebook or MySpace, and other web-based cyber-groups floating around. One thing I’ve noticed from participating in these forums and groups is that about 1 outta 50 playwrights actually knows how to interface, interact, and maximize the potential of these virtual porticoes. How savvy are you when it comes to participation thru posting? Are you that one or the other 50?

If that forum your a member of was a theater — what would you do with it? Would you really only tap on the mike once our twice, see if it was on, and only leave a brief calling card — or would you do more? Can you do something more memorable, more lasting, more significant with your stage-time?

I think sites such as these are like stage-time. How can you do more than leave a calling card? How can you use this forum to make a statement — to leave an impression? From impressions come connections. The connections are what we seeks as artists.

Visit the Playwright Zoo Archive.

Creative Creatures

Workshops for the writer @ Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health

Writing as a spiritual practice, a creative path, or as a way to re-vision your life story helps you access the thoughts behind your thoughts and experience a new intimacy with yourself. Writing helps us make friends with our inner critic, freeing us to create and express without inhibition.

Kripalu provides a welcoming environment in which to turn inward toward the words that are calling you-and offers you a variety of skilled teachers to guide you on the next step of your writing journey.

FastLinks to theaters

These theaters accept unsolicited plays

Actors Theatre of Louisville
Louisville, KY. National 10-minute play contest.

Act II Playhouse
Ambler, PA. Full length plays, musicals, and solo pieces.

African Continuum Theatre
Washington, DC. Multicultural work relevant to African-American community.

Alabama Shakespeare Festival
Montgomery, AL. Plays from Southern writers with Southern or African-American themes.

Amas Musical Theatre, Inc.
NYC. Multicultural casts and themes.

ART Station
Stone Mountain, GA. Full-length plays, musicals, solo pieces that describe Southern experience.

Asian American Theatre Company
San Francisco, CA. Innovative rendrings about the Asian American experience.

Bristol River Theatre
Bristol, PA Cutting-edge works, plays that experiment with form.

Celebration Theatre
West Hollywood, CA. Plays not previously produced that provide a prgressive gay and lesbian voice in contemporary theatre.

Centre Stage-South Carolina
Greenville, SC. Full-length, unproduced plays.

City Theatre
Miami, FL. One acts only that represent a diverse mix of subjects and themes.

Columbus Children’s Theatre
Columbus, OH. Social issue one-acts acceptable for audiences in grades K-5.

Dad’s Garage
Atlanta, GA. Full-length nontraditional plays, comedies.

Detroit Repertory Theatre
Detroit, MI. Full-length issue oriented plays.

East West Players
Los Angeles, CA. Plays by or about the Asian American experience.

El Centro Su Teatro
Bilingual and/or Spanish language plays, plays dealing with the Chicano/Latino cultural asthetic or political experience.

Express Children’s Theatre
Houston, TX. Plays for young audiences.

5th Avenue Theatre
Seattle, WA. Adventure Musical Theatre: ongoing program that commissions original musicals performed for K-6 students.

Foothill Theatre
Nevada City, CA. Seeks full-length plays. New Voices of the Wild West: annual spring series of plays about the rural American West.

Growing Stage Theatre
Netcong, NJ. Accepts plays with a production history suitable for family audiences.

Hangar Theatre
Ithaca, NY. Accepts one-acts for for young audiences only.

Huntington Theatre
Boston, MA. Accepts plays from Boston area playwrights only; agent submission all others.

Jewish Theatre of the South
Atlanta, GA. Works on Jewish themes.

Jobsite Theater
Tampa, FL. Topical, politically and socially relevant theatre; plays appealing to 20- and 30- somethnings.

Kitchen Dog Theater Company
Dallas, TX. Plays from Texas and Southwest playwrights.

Kuma Kahua Theatre
Honolulu, HI. Plays set in Hawaii or dealing with Hawaiian experience.

Merry-Go-Round Playhouse
Auburn, NY. Plays for young audiences.

Mill Mountain Theatre
Roanoke, VA. Accepts unsolicited one-acts for CenterPieces reding series only.

Miracle Theatre Group
Portland, OR. Hispanic playwrights, plays that deal with the Hispanic experience.

Mu Performing Arts
Minneapolis, MN. Asian-American expeience, plays combining traditional Asian performance with Western theatre styles, short plays suitable for school tours.

New Georges
NYC. plays by women only, works with vigorous use of language and heightened perspectives on reality.

New Jersey Repertory Company
Long Branch, NJ. Work not produced professionally, social or humanistic themes.

A Noise Within
Glendale, CA. Translations or adaptations of classical material only.

Oldcastle Theatre Company
Bennington, VT. Accepts musicals and plays.

OpenStage Theatre & Company
Fort Collins, CO. Accepts full-length plays.

Oregon Children’s Theatre
Portland, OR. Plays and musicals for young and family audiences.

Playhouse on the Square
Memphis, TN. Full-length plays and musicals.

Playwrights Horizons
NYC. American writers only, works with strong sense of language that take theatrical risks.

Porchlight Music Theatre Chicago
Chicago, IL. Full-length and one-act musicals.

Sanctuary: Playwrights Theatre
Brooklyn, NY. Accepts playwrights with at least one professional production only; prefers plays with unusul structure, radical core ideas, epic form, work that’s off the map or otherwise seen as impractical.

Seattle Children’s Theatre
Seattle, WA. Accepts unsolicted plays for Drama Summer School season only: one-act plays suitable for young actors.

Seem-To-Be-Players
Lawrence, KS. Plays for young audiences.

Soho Repertory Theatre
NYC. Accepts unsolicited scripts for Writer/Director Lab only, deadline: May.

TADA! Youth Theater
NYC. Plays for young audiences.

Thalia Spanish Theatre
Sunnyside, NY. Plays with Hispanic themes.

Theater by he Blind
NYC. Works by and about being blind.

Theater for the New City
NYC. Experimental American works; plays with poetry, music, and dance; social issues.

Trustus Theatre
Columbia, SC. One-acts for late night series – 45-75 minutes in length. No topic or experimental structure is taboo.

Two Chairs Theater Company
Grand Junction, CO. Full-length, one-acts, 10-minute plays. Annual short play fest, deadline Jan. 31.

Unicorn Theatre
Kansas City. MO. Full-length contemporay social issues.

Victory Gardens Theater
Chicago, IL. Accepts plays from Chicago residents only. All others submit 10-page sample and letter of inquiry.

VS Theatre Company
Los Angeles, CA. Accepts unique and edgy full-length unproduced plays with submission form.

West Coast Ensemble
Los Angeles, CA. Plays not previously produced in Southern California.

Wings Theatre Company, Inc.
NYC. Gay themed musicals and plays only.

The York Theatre Company
NYC. Small cast musicals.

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by David Burgess on May 4, 2018 0

Children’s Stages and Theaters

Building Theaters at Home

Whether it’s a tiny table-top sized puppet theater or a full kid-sized mock-up, it’s easier than you think to bring home the fun of a full-fledged “theater.”

A real theater is not necessary, but part of the fun of putting on a show can be all the fuss and fanciness of a real theater – the curtains, the lights, the costumes, the sound effects. Sure, some real New York actor started an actual theater in his as-is living room (so can you), but a little embellishment adds to the sense of dramatic occasion!

Makes a great family project too.

This Lens will talk about creating (or buying, that works) and using theaters in your home with your children.

(The photo is from Benjamin Pollok’s Toy Shop.)

A Full Kid-Size Theater

Easier than you think!
Romeo and Juliet and Balcony LEVELS – Often there is a feature in your house that just screams “Show Biz!” Maybe a step or two – a change in level – between, say, the entry and the living room. Set dining room chairs in a row facing this and the higher lever is now “on-stage.” If your stairs are nearby that’s a bonus – now there are multi-levels for more dramatic blocking and Juliet can stand up a couple steps for her balcony (a tall stool twined with roses works well too).

DOORWAYS & CURTAINS – If there’s a wide doorway or opening between two spaces, add a curtain and that opening – Voila! – becomes a proscenium stage. This could be done as simply as by installing strong hooks at the upper corners of the opening, then tying a nylon cord clothes-line-style between them. A couple bedsheets (with the cord pulled through the biggest hem) become a pair of Grand Drapes. If you sew, then hemming lengths of a light-weight velour (red!) would make even more satisfying theater curtains. If feeling lavish, you could add fringe at the bottom. A more permanent version of this idea would be to install a drapery rod and velvet drapes. If your house is old enough or your decor traditional, these may be decorative: portieres were once very popular, partly because they look nice, partly because they stop drafts. (In “Gone With the Wind,” Scarlet wears her mother’s green velvet portieres as a dress.)

BED CURTAINS – This idea works well at a child’s bed, where a footboard and draperies make an easy puppet theater. (I knew one much-loved puppet theater that was the foot of a lower bunk plus gingham curtains – perfect.) In the book “Little Women,” Jo and her sisters performed their plays using the curtains of an old four-poster bed.

Curtains are always popular with junior thespians. If you have drapes covering a big patio door, have the actors do their acting on the patio, while the audience sits inside looking out. Or vice versa depending on whether the play is set in an interior or exterior. Do both! Make the audience move as real theaters do when performing “House and Garden.”

SCREENS – A pair of folding screens could make sides for a theater (mini-wings). You could paint these with theatrical motifs like Comedy and Tragedy masks. Would the kid version could be Smiley and Frowny Faces?

Do a little research on grand historic theaters to get ideas. (Researching with the kids might be a good lesson in history, architecture, and in library/research skills too. Then you get the messy fun of painting!) If very ambitious and with older children or teens, you could together design and build these “wing” screens. It would be easy with thin plywood and a scroll saw to give the wing-screens either the architectural profile of an old theater – then paint on the architecture – or to cut tree shapes for a more pastoral look.

Most ambitiously, perhaps for Scouts of a church youth group, you could create a whole demountable mini proscenium built from traditional theater flats of fabric stretched on 1×4 wood frames and painted.

Impromptu Theater!

Wonderful Cardboard! (from photos-public-domain.com) After all this planning for a theater at home, don’t forget how much fun – how creative – a spur-of-the-moment activity can be.

If your family gets a nice new appliance, throw away the new refrigerator or dishwasher and play with the box1 Cut out holes in it for a puppet theater and use socks straight out of the drawer with eyes etc. quickly pinned or sewn on. Or turn that box into the gingerbread house for a retelling of Hanzel and Gretel. I bet you could draw or paint on all the “candy” needed for that… or paint pop bottle caps and glue those on as “candies” or… Your imaginations are the only limits!
Midsummer’s Night’s Dream

Books on Theater for Kids

Here’s some material to use on-stage. Theater is all about story telling!

This is a great time to encourage your kid to make up stories, to take old stories like fairy tales and retell them as little stage dramas, to go looking (and reading) for new stories to tell.

Theater Buildings

A cultural history lesson (disguised as fun)
Shakespeare’s Globe Theater Researching theater buildings could be both fun and, well, educational. It will help in designing and decorating your at-home theater. Look at books and the internet for historic theaters like Shakespeare’s Globe Theater.

The Globe is particularly worth discussing. There’s the Shakespeare connection, of course. Even quite young children enjoy the story of “A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream” with it’s feuding fairies, it’s silly mortals running around, and the goofy guy with the donkey ears. Easy to slip in a history lesson here, filled with fascinating characters like Queen Elizabeth I and events like the discovery of America. (Try acting out the wreck of the Spanish Armada at bath time. Sink some duckies!)

The Globe Theater is also interesting as a building, with its construction of timbers infilled with brick and mud and its straw roof. A cannon shot during Shakespeare’s “Henry VIII” set fire to the thatch roof – another fun fact! (Perfect opportunity for Mom to perform the ever popular no-playing-with-matches speech.) This historic theater has been recently rebuilt – a interesting example of archeology and a potential field trip.

Visiting a local theater, especially if you’re lucky enough to have a good children’s theater and/or a historic theater in your area, would make a great (slightly less expensive) field trip. When you go, have a contest to see who can spot the most how-theater-works items off of the stage: notice the lobby; the box office and ticket collector; the program and what’s in it; the way seats, aisles, and balconies are designed; the many fire exits (fire has always been a problem in theaters even without cannons); the way the curtains, if any, work; the sets and lighting; the costumes. And the performances and story.

Or research the great opera houses of Paris and Milan. (More great field trips!) Talk about the Paris Opera House and the story of the Phantom. Play music from the musical. (There really IS a subterranean lake under the Opera. Really, truly.)

Assemble a Prop Box

Prop Box You can’t play theater without props and costumes!

First find a big box – or maybe two marked “Props” and “Costumes” in florid lettering.

Now fill the “Costume” box with Mom’s old shoes and party dresses for princess-wear and Dad’s ties or lumberjack flannel shirts. Add hats, red hoods and hero capes, shopkeepers’ aprons, fishermen’s hats, striped witchy socks, and anything else interesting that you can scrounge (scrounging is half the fun).

Then fill the “Prop” box with plastic swords and goblets and crowns, astronaut helmets (is that costume?), wood-choppers’ rubber axes and light sabers, baby bottles, toy animals, three bear-sizes of bowls with plastic porridge and other fake food including a poisoned plastic apple… plus all the other intriguing clutter that kids need to swash and buckle with.

Creating these theatrical trunks could be a lot of fun – and using them even more so!

(Remember in the book Little Women the contents of those sisters’ theater trunk? Most treasured was a pair of tall leather boots for the heroes to wear. For my kid, it was a pair of my boots from college – tall red leather with miles of laces – that became beloved pirate wear.)

Historic (and violent!) Puppetry

Puppets of Palermo (You might want to look this over before your kids do.)

This puppetry troupe from Palermo, or one very like it, visited Dallas years ago. My kid and I saw a performance. This is AUTHENTIC Medieval-style puppetry – which means Monty Pythonesque whacking with wooden swords and carved wooden limbs getting hacked off. My kid loved it! But I definitely saw some moms covering their younger children’s eyes.

The following website has a video clip (full of funny puppet beheadings etc.), interesting photos of puppets and workshops, and a link to Palermo’s marionette museum.

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by David Burgess on May 3, 2018 0

Theater For Children

Kids Performing Art!

Theater is one of the most exciting and most educational projects you can to do with kids.

Developmentally, it’s hard to top theater. Drama can teach word skills like reading, writing, imaginative composition (fiction they call it, or drama), plus a feeling for the spoken music of words and poetry. Not to mention a smattering of history and literature.

Socially, drama teaches both cooperation AND independence, recognizing and dealing with emotions, empathy, plus the practical skill of speaking in front of an audience. Public speaking is a skill many adults wish we had developed. Music. Dance. Magic tricks. Almost any skill or interest can find a home onstage. There’s a whole branch of theater called improvisation: always useful to learn how to think on your feet. And as children get more involved in what’s called “technical theater” – all the props, costumes, sets, lights, sound etc. – math skills, visual and spacial skills, and handicrafts all come into play. Plus innovation. There’s a LOT of problem-solving in theater.

There’s also a great deal of comradery and joy.

Start small and easy: goof around with puppets, make masks, recite a poem, act out the Three Bears – – – Have fun onstage.

The picture? A set from a children’s production of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.” Since I happen to have an abundance of factory-themed children’s sets to decorate this Lens, let’s think of it as a big Drama-Fun Factory! I’ll point out some of the gears and levers that will help you make your own at-home theater. It’s also a factory-in-progress (as all my Lenses are), so please visit again to see what new gears have been added.

Puppet Theater

Always popular with kids
There is something fascinating about puppets. They combine the make-believe and miniature joy of dolls with the expression and story-telling of people – while, best of all, shy performers can hide behind them like a mask. (More on masks later.) Any child can say more, a lot more freely when using a puppet. (As psychologists know.) Puppets are freedom and wild improvisation.

It’s most fun to build your own puppets and puppet theaters, but store-boughten is fun too.

Do It Yourself Puppets

Punch. Where’s Judy? PAPER BAG PUPPETS – Maybe the simplest puppet is the paper bag puppet. Take a plain brown lunch bag and have your child draw the puppet’s eyes and nose on the bottom, so that the fold (where the bottom folds flat) becomes the inside of the puppet’s mouth. Colored markers or poster paint (not too wet!) will look bolder and more effective than crayons or pencils. Adding cut paper elements will make the puppet more exciting: a red construction paper tongue for a snake maybe or great big ol’ cow licks; the cow’s horns or moose antlers; arms and hands; or perhaps a silly mustache or paper wig. Scraps of fabric or fur can be fun. Anything, really. Go to the movies and watch the crazy puppets in the Fandango ads.

Now, how about adding a huge grocery store bag puppet to play the giant?

SOCK PUPPETS – Just as easy to make if you’re up for a little simple sewing: buttons for eyes, scraps of fabric for tongues, ears, hands; wool for hair.

GLOVE PUPPETS – One woolly glove becomes a quintet of actors. Or cut the fingers off (roll-hem the cut edges) and create five separate prima donnas. You could experiment with wool versus cotton versus rubber glove fingers (rubber for aliens maybe? add little teeny antenae) or roll your own finger tubes from any fabric or even stiff paper.

POPSICLE STICK PUPPETS – Almost any picture can be either printed onto stiff card-stock paper or mounted onto cardboard and glued to a popsicle stick. I suggest either adult-applied spray mount (flattest most permanent) or child-applied glue stick for the picture to cardboard gluing, then white glue like Elmers or hot glue (adult again or old enough child) for the picture to stick attachment. Try cutting out arms or heads separately and attaching these to the puppet’s body with old fashioned brass brads so you can change their poses. Suddenly they can emote!

OTHER “STICK” PUPPETS – As with popsicle sticks, almost any stick-like object can turn into a puppet. Try decorating wooden spoons or toilet paper tubes (which make finger puppets). Or how about – new! clean! – toilet plungers? Or spatulas or decorated pencils or pool noodles with drawn-on permanent marker faces?

SHADOW PUPPETS – These can be cut out cardboard shapes very similar to popsicle stick puppets. They needn’t be decorated with color unless you want to, but “decorations” made by cutting holes can be fun. Bring out the hole punch! I imagine you might be able to cut out small areas and then fill these with colored tissue paper or translucent plastic for a stained glass effect. Obviously you’ll need a shadow screen – stretched white fabric or paper – and a strong light to make these work.

MARIONETTES – These are more complicated puppets, but all you absolutely need are two flat sticks fixed together in an X with strings from the four ends that tie to the puppet’s arms, head, and legs or rear (whichever is funnier). The “puppet” could be any loose jointed doll – made of cloth or wood or cardboard tubes.

For older kids with advanced skills and a LOT of patience – and an interest in video – you could try making your own short film. Film puppets in action! (Watch a Muppet movie. Like that.)

Or if VERY patient and motivated, try making clay “puppets” to shot-by-shot act out a brief Claymation film. (Watch a Wallace and Grommet movie to see how masters do this!) But this stop motion filming technique is only for the extremely motivated and patient!

Puppet Videos

Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre – Romeo and Juliet Part I
Rated PG – Extra Silly
Meant for older kids as it gets a bit, slightly, um, vulgar as the Bard and Scottish Sock Puppets are so apt to do. Make a nice antidote to classroom reading of this classic! The other vids are suitable for younger children.

Masks

Using and making masks for children

Poof! You’re someone (or something) else. Masks seem magical – a natural development of the baby’s game of peekaboo.

Masks can be made from almost any material: a paper grocery bag; a paper plate plus string; cut cardboard, felt, or craft foam plus elastic; paper mache (lots of goopy fun); or, if you’re ambitious, leather etc.; or there are lots of mask kits, where you start with a pre-formed face shape and decorate and add to it.

PAPER MACHE – Amazingly cheap and simple, though time consuming. Tear or cut newspaper into strips, the thinner, the more detailed you can get. Mix flour and water to make a thick paste, soak the paper in this till sticky but not soggy, then slowly build up your shape. It’s easier if you have a shape to lay the strips over. A kid’s-face-sized balloon can work or a plastic mask. You can add in cardboard to reinforce protruding pieces like ears or tusks – make sure these are well integrated into the face proper so they won’t rip off easily. Allow several days for the paper mache to dry before trying to paint or decorate it.

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