Fairy Tale Paper Theater

During my work on the Imaginarium paper theater, I came to appreciate paper theaters as an art form. I especially like the 3D effects the theaters are capable of achieving. This fairy tale paper theater is a good example. Through the two archways, Cinderella is seen leaving behind her glass slipper while the prince and his castle are glimpsed in the distance. The scenery in the theater can be changed to also show scenes from Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel, Puss in Boots, and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

The template for this theater was originally offered in the 1920's by the Danish language magazine Familie-Journal. Patricia M at the Agence Eureka blog has scans of the four page template starting here (the other pages may be viewed by clicking on the thumbnails at the right of the page). The build photo above is by Patrick Pasques.

Ornate Teddy's Theater Papercraft

This ornate paper theater is intended to be used as a play set for teddy bear paper dolls. Both the theater and the matching paper dolls were created by the unidentified Danish designer who runs the PaperMatrix blog. The project might be seen as a work in progress as various parts and stage sets for the theater have been periodically posted on the blog since May 2010. Templates for the theater parts (and the teddy bear actors too) may be found here.

Eisbrecher Toy Theater Papercraft

Eisbrecher is a German industrial metal band. Eisbrecher also happens to be the favorite musical group of Eka from Finland, the creator of this papercraft theater (or should I call it a "papercraft stage"?) Eka drew the band members by hand, then translated them into an electronic format that could be turned into papercraft. Not bad for a first attempt at papercraft design. A download of the template is available here.

Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus Paper Theater

Late last year I was approached by a theater in the Netherlands to produce a paper theater for their gift shop. But alas, the project never became a reality and I was left with an unfulfilled desire to design a paper theater. I finally got inspired enough to follow through on my desire a couple months ago after watching the movie The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. The movie is directed by former Monty Python member Terry Gilliam and features the final on-screen performance of actor Heath Ledger. The plot of the movie involves a troupe of traveling actors whose portable stage looks much like a life size paper theater. At the end of the movie Doctor Parnassus, the leader of the troupe, is shown on the street selling toy theaters which resemble his own theater. This papercraft is my attempt at recreating the toy theater seen at the end of the movie. Information for the template is as follows:

Scale: 1:2 (estimated)

Finished size: 7" W(17.8 cm) x 7" H (17.8 cm) x 4" D (10.2 cm)

Number of pages: 7
Number of parts: 23
Difficulty: 3/5
Download

The photo shown above doesn't do justice to the 3D effect of the theater which is similar to 3D decoupage. I hope you enjoy the theater. It was a lot of fun to design and build. Oh, I forgot to mention the model comes with a "curtain" and there are slots in the top so that it may be used as a functional toy theater and not just as a prop for a book shelf.

Monkey Opera Paper Theater

Monkey:Journey to the West is a nine act contemporary opera inspired by a Chinese legend about the adventures of a monkey who hatches out of a stone egg. The production of the opera involves acrobatics, singing, animation and electronic music by the co-creators of Gorillaz. What's not to love about this opera? This paper theater depicts act one of the opera and is available for download here. Eight additional scenes will be available sometime in the future.