Scenery
Act. I. Scene 1. The best trees are real ones, saplings and evergreens, cut the morning before the performance. Painted scenery of course should be used to help out. Palms and shrubs can be rented for the evening. A great many pieces of candy—say, molasses drops wrapped in tissue-paper—should be laid in the branches of the sugar-plum tree. The bean-stalk can be made of three good-sized poles, set close together in openings cut through the stage. The tops should go up out of sight of the audience and be secured to a platform where actors can hide at the right time. The poles should be wound with real foliage, or with green tissue-paper. The trunk of the telephone tree might be a hollow log, in which a small door is cut. The bell and cardboard receiver are hung inside the opening. Branches should be skilfully thrust into the top of the log, to finish the tree. Branches should be heaped also about the “roots” of all the trees, and the more green things there are scattered about the stage, the better. The blunderbuss is made by fitting a cardboard horn to the end of a rifle, shot-gun, or toy gun; but the entire weapon can be made of wood and cardboard.
Scene 2. Before the curtain goes up the bean-poles should be lifted out of their sockets, and the tops loosened and held in place by ropes in the hands of actors on the platform above. At the right moment the poles are allowed to fall.
Act II. The fireplace may be cut through sheets of cardboard. A box may be placed in the opening. The larger the fireplace, the more giant-like will it seem. It would be a very good thing if some of the little carpenters in the company could make a huge chair, table, and cradle.