How to Make a Puppet Theater

Today I am going to share with you how to make a puppet theater out of an old hutch or bookcase. I have found these are easy to find at any thrift shop, Salvation Army or Goodwill. Apparently people will keep the dresser and get rid of the hutch.

I found my hutch curbside and decided to rescue it. The first thing I did was clean it…GUHROSSSS! Then I took off the backer board.

It wasn’t stable enough to handle my three year old boy so I knew I had to stabilize it somehow. I got out some scraps of plywood and measured the width of the hutchy thing and that is how wide the top of my parallelogram is. Then I widened the bottom to give it the stability it needed.

Using a circular saw, I cut out two of them and screwed them into the sides of the puppet theater and I achieved the stability it needed.

Then using a 5/8″ drill bit I drilled holes in the sides and inserted a 5/8″ dowel rod (cut to size) for the curtains to hang from.

Next I sanded the whole piece down and gave it a coat of primer followed by two coats of red paint.

Then I decided to to use the backer board as a chalkboard on the front. I cut it down using a utility knife since it was just a thin wood composite. After primering it and painting it with chalkboard paint I nailed it in place with thin brad nails.

Since it did not cover the entire piece I cut some trim to frame it out using my miter box and saw. I just used the foam composite stuff.

Then I laid it out in place to make sure it looked perfect..and it did!

I sprayed the molding with black spray paint. Since there wasn’t anywhere to nail it in, I used Liquid Nails and clamped it in place. Some of the glue oozed out but I just touched it up after it was dry.

I made little curtains out of fabric I had on hand and hung them from the dowel rod.

I have one happy little boy and I am enjoying a late night “show” before bedtime of and pig and a fish becoming friends and beating the big bad wolf. 😉

You don’t need a hutch type thing for this project. Any small book shelf would work. This one I used an old laminate shelf and just propped it up higher.