The Soldier's Tale at the Purcell School is really starting to come together now - backdrops are being finished, props are coming along nicely and the puppeteers are getting the hang of each scene in turn. We blocked the last two scenes last night, including the tricky last scene with all the puppets on stage - kudos to the young puppeteers for working in such a small space!

Last week saw lots of applied maths at Aboyne Lodge as pupils transferred their designs to the large canvases. They drew out the grid on the canvases themselves, converting between centimetres and inches and dividing the canvas into the correct size of the grid so that the designs would not be distorted. Meanwhile, the props teams measured puppets and designed furniture to scale for each scene, producing labelled front, side and top view drawings of each item in the process.

Last night's rehearsal at the Purcell School saw the soldier's violin in action for the first time. The violin is actually six different violins, each with a different number of strings attached so that they can be moved around the stage as the script requires. It's a very difficult prop to use and the puppeteers are having to concentrate very hard, but made some impressive progress last night! We also had a sneaky peek at the backdrops, which are looking fantastic!

Our new stage is under construction (more about that soon - watch this space!) and we took the main parts of it to the Purcell School today so that the pupils could try using it for the first time. Not only did they have to cope with their puppets in a new context, but there were also props such as the book and the butterfly net to contend with. The inevitable minor tangles aside, it's looking quite good!

First session back at Aboyne Lodge today and we were designing the five sets that we'll need for Baba Yaga and The Stolen Turnips. Using the boxes that had previously held their puppets, each child built their own scene from one of the two stories. This is the first time YPPT has tried this particular method of design, and we were very impressed with the results!

Rehearsals have begun for The Soldier's Tale at The Purcell School with a workshop on basic puppeteering. It's so great to see the puppets come to life! Thanks to @PurcellSchool on Twitter for this photo.