The stage for a children's play should be as large as possible, with at least two exits. This can be managed by placing screens across

The Stage-manager

One of the best means of ensuring success is to choose one person to be stage-manager, and, having chosen him, to obey him absolutely. A stage-manager should have complete control over his company and stage, and if the responsibility, as far as the acting is concerned, is vested in one capable person, the results are far more likely to be successful than if half a dozen people undertake the direction. They are certain to disagree, more or less (generally more), and the usual result is failure.

One of the mistakes usually made in getting up plays is having too few rehearsals. Rehearsals are wearisome and monotonous things which take a good deal of time, but they are of vital importance, and there can scarcely be too many. Nothing successful was ever yet accomplished without work, and acting is no exception to the rule. No real progress can be made until the actors are letter-perfect in their parts, so they should learn them by heart as soon as possible.

The stage-manager should make a point of hearing one of the first rehearsals from the back of the auditorium, and also of viewing one from the worst-placed seat, so that he may be quite sure that each member of the audience can hear and see the play well. It is of great importance that the rehearsals should take place as often as possible on the stage itself, so as to avoid confusion and to make the children perfectly familiar with the exits and the position of the furniture.

Scenery is nearly always a difficulty, especially if part of the action takes place out of doors. It is best to avoid plays with out-of-doors scenes for home acting, but these scenes can be managed with a little time and trouble. To begin with, the stage should be quite clear of furniture, then the back wall should be covered with pale blue cotton material to represent the sky. On the lower part of this background should be sketched, with coloured chalk, a range of distant hills or a river winding through fields. The hills are very easy to do. All that is necessary is an irregular mass of purple, blue, and grey-green across the lower part of the blue stuff. They can even be cut out of pieces of material of the required colours and pasted on. Another plan is to sew boughs of evergreen on a strip of stuff the width of the stage and fix it up across the bottom of the background. The boughs can also be stuck into hurdles, but usually these latter are difficult to get. Either of these methods makes a very good hedge. The background should have rings sewn at intervals along the top, and there should be nails at corresponding intervals close to the ceiling, so that the scenery can be easily and quickly put up or taken down. The side walls of the stage should be covered in a similar way,

Dress and Make-up

The dress of the actors takes a large part in making a play successful. Of course, the simplest plan is to.hire dresses, if a costume play is decided upon, but it is a quite unnecessary expense. If the costumes are properly made and copied from pictures they look very well, and are useful afterwards for fancy-dress balls.

Dresses should all be made at home or all hired. A very bad effect is produced if a rich child hires a dress perfect in every detail and of expensive material from the costumiers, and wears it in a play in which the other actors are dressed in home-made things. Of course, the better the materials used the better most costumes will look, but very good results can be obtained with quite inexpensive stuffs. Cloth (which is useful for cavaliers' cloaks) can be bought for 8|d. (or a penny or two more) a yard, while cretonne in the new small patterns makes splendid flowered coats and gowns. Armour can be made out of buckram, cut and fitted to shape, then covered with the silver paper off tea-packets. A good way to make mail-armour is to sew overlapping scales of silver paper all over two pairs of stockings, one pair of which is to be worn on the legs and the second on the arms.

It is always best to "make-up" the actors a little, especially if naturally pale.

If powdered hair is required, it is best to use ordinary starch crushed fine. It is perfectly harmless and is very easy to brush out. Wigs for boys requiring long locks can be made out of crepe hair, which is sold at any hairdresser's for 9d. a yard. It is sold in a sort of plait, which should be cut into the required lengths. These lengths should all be tied together at one end, then the bunch should be sewn on the. top of a sort of skullcap of material the same colour as the hair, so that the loose ends are hanging down all round. These ends are to be frayed out till the skull-cap is entirely covered, then kept in place with a few stitches. Two yards of crepe hair is enough to make a long wig. Properties "should be as realistic as possible, and many, such as swords and silver drinking-cups, can always be borrowed. Excellent red wine may be made from fruit-juice, cochineal, and water; and weak tea, without milk, makes splendid ale.