Masonite or luan plywood would be good options, they are both pretty thin, so people aren't as likely to trip on them. You might have to put something on the back to help prevent them from sliding. The other option is ground cloth, a large piece of canvas which is painted and streached over the stage.

 

Dan

Any easy option would be to use brick pattern paneling. Paint it yellow and put some sand in the paint to make the surface non-slip.

 

Masonite is used best as a cover for platforms to provide a smooth surface for dancers. Regular plywood is often a lot more rough, and can catch costumes and toes with its unevenness. If you wanted to paint your stage floor, you could do it very well, and most cheaply with masonite. The stuff needs to sit on a very even surface, as it can break off over a sharp edge below. I usually tape the pieces together with good gaffers tape when covering a floor, and then painting the whole thing to my hearts desire. If the floor is good, you won't even need to screw the stuff down much, if at all.

 

For the spark effect, for that age group, I would suggest a high powered LED flashlight with fiber optic strands that the witch could easily turn on and off with a momentary contact switch in her hands. The scene would need to be a bit on the dark side to work best, and doing a pyrotechnic effect would very likely cost a lot less, but the LED system would likely put up with a lot more abuse, and would absolutely not catch anyone on fire.

We spent hours and hours trying to come up with a yellow brick road.  When it was all said and done, we revealed the front of the stage as the road, but as it all turned out, it was only visible from the first couple rows.   If you are laying the road directly on the stage, it is a good idea to look at it from all over the house to see where it can be seen from, otherwise your hard work and effect may be totally lost.  We had other neat things about that show, but the road never was what we wanted it to be.

 

Good luck and have a great show!

 

 

 

Also, I'd suggest masonite above luaun, because luaun could give both actors and people handling it splinters.  Luaun is also more likely to warp after being painted on one side without any framing attached.  Masonite is what we'd use in professional theater.  Masonite is a smooth surface, but if you don't use glossy paint it isn't that slippery.  It's usually much cheaper if you go to a real lumber yard and not Home Depot... and prices vary regionally. 

 

I would be concerned about use of a "ground cloth," both because it is likely to wrinkle and trip actors.

 

Perhaps, if you haven't bought anything yet your best and safest option would be to use yellow carpet with the cracks between the bricks stencil painted on and the overall shape cut to the shape of your road. 

 

However, since you say you're going with maso, to paint:

 

1.  Texture always looks better on stage than flat color.  Yellow is not as opaque as other colors.  I would get 2 or 3 shades of yellow/ gold/ orange and a spongy roller cover and roller (looks like a sea sponge attached to a roller), pour the colors into 3 pans, and then use the sponge in all three colors.  Dip and roll the first color until you're running low on paint on the sponge, and then dip into the second and work it over the same area a little, and then the same with the third and then move along on the surface.  If you work it too much it will all blend into one muddy, flat color, but if you achieve the right balance it will be a stunning texture under light.

 

2.  Lay out your bricks on the dry surface.  Charcoal is a great layout material, because you can remove it with a damp (or even a dry) cloth if you make a mistake.  Make sure you keep your lines straight or it will be very obvious in your final product.  The "horizontals" on your bricks should all line up, but the "verticals" should be staggered.  Staggering 1/3 of a brick from row to row tends to work best.

 

3.  To achieve the cracks, if you use black and just do lines it will look very cartoony.  If you are looking for closer to realism, you will want to paint highlight and shadows.  Get a thin brush.  Water down your paint a little and it will be easier to keep your lines clean, and it will also allow your paint to not look pasty on the surface and the cracks will look more natural.  Use a dark brown, almost black but not quite, for the cracks.  Sometimes break the crack line or vary the widths slightly but gradually and organically.  If you're working on a very big stage, your cracks want to be 1/2-3/4 of an inch wide.  In a very intimate space, sometimes you don't need to paint at all because a sharpee or other permanent marker can achieve the right width.  If you're really nervous about painting straght lines, they make a marker called the "Magnum 44" that will make a line 1/2" wide, and it does come in a variety of colors including brown, but you might need to order that over the internet.  If you use the marker, it is especially important to break your lines,  fading down to thinner width by tilting the marker to fade out and in.

 

4.  When you've finished the shadows, it's time to highlight.  Take a very watery white, or a less watery cream and either a Q-Tip or a small brush.  Pick a "direction" that the light is coming from.  The yellow edges closest to that direction against the shadows want to be highlighted.  Again, use a broken line... not a dotted line, but not solid either.  The widest your highlights want to be for a large space is probably 3/8 of an inch.

 

5.  If any of the shadow edges need cleaning up at the end, a sharpee can be used.

 

6.  There are a few options for your sparkle.  You could insert a sparkly spatter before you make the cracks, or do it now at the end.  OR, you could mix mica powder into a seal coat.  If your show practices a lot on the road, or runs for a lot of nights, you want to seal your paint job with a clear coat, like a clear poly, or clear acrylic.  Use latex based paint and clearcoat (Latex, acrylic, or water-based poly) so it drys fast and you can clean up easily.  DO NOT USE A FAN ON A CLEAR COAT.  Clear coats go on kind of white in color, but then dry clear.  The top layer can dry so fast with a fan that it seals moisture underneath, which never dries and stays cloudy forever, ruining your paint job. 

 

For the sparkle, I suggest not using glitter... it's messy and falls off.  Mica powders mix well into clear coats, and will last forever.  You can control how sparkley you get by how much you add.  You'll probably have to buy WAY more than you need.  Another option is to mix some into a clearcoat, water the clearcoat down a bit and spatter it.  (Or get a metallic paint or glaze, water it down and spatter it.) Rosebrand is a great company to get this from... but Home Depot will carry the glazes.

 

To spatter, water your paint down to the consistantsy of skim milk.  Take a larger brush and dip it in.  Tap the flat, hard part of the brush against your hand (not the narrow side), about three feet above the surface you are painting and keep it moving around over the surface so you don't get blobby.  (Always do a test tap off to the side after every dip, until you know how to feel if there's too much in the brush.  The first tap can be very blobby if you have too much paint.)  The goal is to get lots of little raindrops on the surface.  Take breaks to let it dry, because if you do too much too fast it will all bleed together

 

Another option is to water your paint down and put it in a garden sprayer (the kind you'd use for pesticides) and play with the tip to adjust the spray until you get a fine rain.  Again, keep it moving and don't get too wet and heavy too fast to prevent bleeding.  If the sprayer spits a lot, you probably didn't water down your paint a lot.  After a spatter, you definitley want to seal it, as watered down paint will wear off more quickly.

 

Hope that helps. 

Laura

 

You don't usually want to mix the two, as single tempered runs just a touch thicker even though the measurment they call it is the same... and it's just enough of a difference for things that are being dragged rolled to catch on and hurt your edges.

 

Also, if you do go with masonite, instruct the people handling it to be careful about setting it down on corners, or your corners will quickly become very yucky.  It also is best keep it in some sort of vertical or on-edge fashion when you carry it around, because if you let it bounce around and flex too much, that is when it is most likely to break.

 

Laura

(Oh, and is it wrong to be more than a 'theaterhelper' in this forum?  I do love theater in all forms!)

 

Laura

Good luck!

 

good luck

 hope this helps!

 

Also available at magic shops are the flint sparkers that kids can wear on their fingers and they shoot sparks. We used it in Snow White and it worked great.  It has a little button on it that fits in the palm of their hand and when they push it with their finger the sparks fly!

 

Isn't anyone out there doing Peter Pan????!!!  We have a great set/props for rent!!!!

 

YPT Helper