The Little Mermaid Jr. - sketch of King Triton's Court

This is my sketch the King Triton's Court Scene.  This scene appears 3 times in the play.  Ideally, this is the layout I'd like to use, but as I'm sitting here sketching my ideal scene, I'm realizing that this stuff has to move on and off the stage VERY QUICKLY, because it changes in a matter of minutes between when the curtain closes one one scene and opens on another - yikes!

Some scenes will take place in front of the closed curtain, which is handy for me because there will be more time to move things behind the curtains - other transitions - we might need 20 very organized kids moving things on and off the stage to get things done.  At any rate, here's my plan for this scene:

The centerpiece of King Triton's Court is his throne.  I had originally sketched this out with the throne made of round cardboard cement forms with a cut-out piece of plywood for the back and for the seat as well.  When we went down into the prop room on Friday, we found a tall-backed wicker chair that the director wants me to turn into the throne.  So that means that I have to cover the wicker back and seat of the chair with fabric and shape it so that it looks like an open clam shell.  Maybe we'll use some of those cardboard tubes to cover the bottom of the chair, but I just don't know.  This whole chair will be sitting on top of the one step platform we used in last year's play - the one that I painted to look like bricks.  the advantage to that is that it is large enough, and it already has an appropriate step so that Triton can climb up easily to sit on his throne.  My plan is to cover the sides of the platform with some shaped wire and then spray foam so that it looks like the throne is sitting on a very regal pile of rocks.

The controversial parts here are the columns - I was aiming for something that fills the vertical space on stage.  It's not that easy to do, since although we have a pole hanging up and fly space above, the pole doesn't move.  My plan here calls for 4 (we can certainly cut it down to 2, but doesn't 4 look regal?) columns that are about 10 feet tall and approximately 2 feet wide.  They'd have triangular legs, kind of like chalkboards do, with wheels on the bottom.  We could cover up the legs with round pieces like columns would have - I tried to show it in the picture.

The top of each column would be graced with a nice mermaid cut-out.  I'm going to take a picture from the internet, copy it onto a clear sheet, and blow it up to the appropriate size using an overhead projector, and then trace it into some foam core.  Each one could be mounted on each column using  velcro, so they can be removed and the columns can be swiveled around to the back side for another scene.

I planned on using the columns to hold long pieces of kelp seaweed in another scene.