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How to Make Cardboard Scenery Stand Up

Cardboard scenery can dramatically improve the appearance of a set during a play. Scenery can come in the form of trees, houses, characters or any item imaginable. In order to allow an audience to visualize the scenery, it needs to remain standing up. Depending on the scenery, you can make it stand up in a variety of ways. You will need to make a determination based upon the piece of scenery and items available to your production.

Things You'll Need

Razor knife
Super glue
Nails
Hammer

Instructions

- 1
  Stand up the scenery. If you own scenery containing a self-standing mechanism, you need to use the mechanism. Generally, you need to fold out a piece from behind the cardboard scenery. You can then tilt the scenery back onto this piece and it will stand on its own.
- 2
  Create pop-up scenery. Use a razor knife to cut a vertical line down the back of the cardboard at the center line. Cut partially through the cardboard, making sure not to completely cut through the cardboard, to retain the integrity of the front of the cardboard. Fold the back of the cardboard into a "V" shape. Tilt the cardboard back and prop it up.
- 3
  Hang the scenery. You can use super glue or nails to hang the scenery depending upon the weight of the object. Apply the super glue to the exterior edges of the back of the cardboard. Press it firmly against the object you wish to glue it to. Avoid gluing cardboard scenery to walls as this will ruin the wall. If you use a hammer and nails, you can position the nails towards the upper corners of the scenery and nail the object to the back wall of the theater or to an object.

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