Help me figure this out... Painting multiple characters for children's theatre... Stencils?

Hello Everyone!

I am currently directing Aladdin Jr. for a local elementary school. The entire student body is part of the cast. I have 65 kids on stage and an additional 275 in the choral ensemble. We have an hour to prep, costume, warm up the cast. The school already owns several kryolan and snazaroo palettes and I have budget to purchase more.

I have 5 monkeys, 10 harem girls, 6 narrators, a parrot, a tiger, a silver-full-faced Genie, 9 "genie look-a-likes" - and many other characters.

I have a rotating team of volunteer parents who will paint faces for the 7 performances - but, it will be different parents and I'm trying to figure out a way to have consistent designs. I will only have time (since I'm directing) to paint 1 or 2 of the faces - the rest will have to go to my volunteers.

I'm considering purchasing some Stencil Eyes - to make some of the designs easier, faster and more consistent. I know I can quickly teach stencil pouncing and then move on. Any thoughts or feedback on how this will work? I haven't used them before - but, a quick above the brows mask for the harem girls, eye art for the Narrators, stripes for the tiger, etc. might make things a little easier and smoother.

What say the experts on this? Any ideas?

I think, Doe, that's a great idea for your volunteers. Just be sure to have the correct sponges pounce with. You'll want a more open cell then the typical white latex makeup wedges. The work will go quick and be consistent with an established a system. I've been helping a friend this week who is working with a large community production of Narnia under much the same conditions as yours. Any shortcuts and tools to make the job easy, fast and consistent is just what you need. I teach to haunted attractions on how volunteers can do their own makeup or prep makeup for short turn arounds. Stencils are one things I stress for all the reasons stated.

And like the Kryolan and Snazaroo palettes the school with have a quality product in the Stencil Eyes that they can use and adapt to future projects.

Thanks for the feed-back, Loretta! I think this will work best. I may also train up one of the kids to paint some of the specific needs (tiger, for example) each performance.

I just purchased some stencils from ShowOff - do you think that is the best place for getting the StencilEyes?

Thanks in advance!

My son's elementary school put that on when he was in 5th grade (he's in 10th now)... I think you may have a bigger budget than we did but; we were very frugal and used only make-up and/or costumes that suggested one should "use their imagination"... if you know what I mean. We didn't make any character interpretation too literal. Funny what absolutely clever ideas can be hatched that way!

Have you thought about turning to the local high school art department to find some gifted artist to help you paint? There are always between 3 and 6 talented artists for every high school of 200 .

Thanks for the help and ideas, ladies! I will try to set one of my volunteers on the task of getting us some high-schoolers. The school alumni do often come to volunteer. They are rock-stars.

Miss Ronnie, the program is fairly well-funded with a nice grant. I started the program 4 years ago and now it is largely self-supporting. We truly do our best to be frugal and have a feeling of community involvement - but, the kids *love* the makeup and we have a history of doing fun things. This year, we are focusing our production elements on costumes/makeup since our set is largely made up of gorgeous, lush fabrics...

Thanks, again! I'll share the photos when we get to that stage.

Just a quick word of advice from me doing a similar thing last year- you may need to have a quick lesson in sponging- I had a brand new 90g tag white that a volunteer used for a concert last year I did. She used the sponge to dig a hole in the paint and slather it onto the kids- OH MY was it a disaster and I lost nearly half a tub before I realised.

So assume they know nothing and have a quick lesson with one or two who can then monitor the others- I learned the hard way.

My son's middle school put on a musical called "There's a Monster in My Closet" when he was in 8th grade. I did the make-up for that one... (it had a much bigger budget than the elementary school shows) and it was a hoot and a holler... but VERY hectic & stressful for me. I had to paint every major "character" except for the kids who played regular kids. The rest of the cast consisted of monsters and the extras & chorus got to pick what make-believe character they wanted to be. There was: the Tooth Fairy, the Sandman, the Queen of Hearts, Jack Frost, Tinkerbell, the Easter Bunny, an elf, Mrs. Clause, Little Red Riding Hood, the Big Bad Wolf, Sebastian from The Little Mermaid, Mr. Toad, an angel, Rainbow Brite... there were a lot more but I can't remember them now. I don't know how I did it, but I somehow managed!