How to Make a Puppet Theatre at Home

It’s time to play the music. It’s time to light the lights. It’s time to meet the puppets in the puppet show tonight! Or this morning, whatever works! We’ve put together a quick guide on how to make a puppet theatre at home.

Instructions to Make a Puppet Theatre for Kids

Making a puppet theatre is a neat craft activity for the family to do together. Older kids may be able to make their own too. We’ve put together some instructions on how to make two types of puppet theatres – a doorway theatre and a box theatre.

Making a Doorway Puppet Theatre

You will need something to attach the cloth to the top of the doorway (such as nails, push pins, Velcro or a dowel), a piece of fabric approximately the same size as the doorway, ruler and scissors.

To make the theatre, cut a square out of the fabric which starts about 50cm from the bottom, 30cm high and 40cm wide. This is where the puppets will perform.  Now is the time to decorate the theatre if you want, by drawing on curtains and sticking on sparkly ‘lights.’ Upon hanging the fabric, note that the bottom should just reach the ground, which lets the performers hide behind it.

This type of puppet theatre works well with the larger hand puppets.

Making a Box Puppet Theatre

Here your theatre is only limited by the size of your box! Larger boxes are often available from shops selling appliances, with medium and small sized boxes are often available from supermarkets. Therefore, both finger puppets and hand puppets suit this type of homemade theatre.

You will need a box, scissors, felt pens, glue, paint and brushes, ruler, fabric, stapler, sparkles and of course, puppets!

To make the box theatre, you will need to firstly cut the hole for the performers. This will vary in size depending upon the box size. Using a ruler, mark out the square or rectangle shape with a felt pen, leaving evenly sized gaps on both sides to maintain the box structure. Cut this out and then paint the outside of the theatre box. Once dry, it’s time to decorate it! Staple or glue the fabric for the curtain to the top of the cut-out piece on the front of the box. When the show is on, this can be flipped up and over the top of the box. Add on any sparkles or glitter and draw designs on the box. Then it’s time for the show…

A puppet show is a great way for children to create imaginary stories, model or replay experiences, retell a story or share their feelings. A show can also be done together, and our puppet and book bundles are ideal for this. It’s time to get the show on the road – drum roll please…