Presentation and performance is an important part of any child's schooling. Some schools do not have any theatre, or even a stage on which performances can take place. It is quite easy to construct your own stage for your school by using custom-made open wooden boxes.
The purpose of the boxes will determine the number that you need
Depending on what you want to achieve with your stage, you will need a different number of boxes of different sizes. The easiest thing to do is to simply raise one section of a classroom, or hall, so that children can be seen more easily when they speak or perform. For that you need between nine and sixteen boxes, depending on the size of the room. If you want to be able to move the boxes around to change the design of the stage, you many need more boxes. This will also allow you to build more levels of your stage.
Size of the boxes
At the least, you will need nine boxes of the following dimensions:
- One square metre in size
- Thirty centimetres high
This will give you enough options to be able to build different configurations for the 'stage'.
Material for the boxes
The boxes should be made out of wood. Depending on your budget, different woods may be used. One that is effective is chipboard, which is solid and also relatively cost–effective. You must remember that chipboard swells much more easily than solid pieces of wood if it gets wet. It can also chip relatively easily along the edges, which can be caused by moving the boxes around a lot. If you put enough pressure on the same spot on a piece of chipboard for long enough, it will break more easily than some other materials. So, if your scholars jump onto one particular box enough times, one of them will eventually find himself jumping clean through the box!
If it is well looked after, chipboard boxes can last for a long time.
The material your boxes are made out of must be able to be painted, repeatedly. It is most likely that you will want to paint your boxes black, but this may change. Even if the boxes remain black, they will get dirty and the wear and tear will show on the paint, so they will have to be repainted fairly regularly.
With a number of wooden boxes and a little imagination, it is easy for you to construct your own stage so that the children at your school will have their own stage they can perform on.
