Creating props for a play can be time consuming, especially if the props are numerous and have many parts. The play The Wizard of Oz has many scenes with different essential background props. A favorite of many people is when Dorothy meets the Scarecrow.
The Scarecrow scene is full of dancing, a lovely song about thinking and lots and lots of cornstalks. Making the corn stalks needed for the Scarecrow scene in the The Wizard of Oz play can take up a lot of pre-production time. It is a tedious job making the corn stalks in the regular manner many try and it is a messy job when making corn stalk props out of real corn stalks.
No production crew for a school play wants to spend that much time or money on one scene. However, you can make plenty of corn stalks quickly and easily using common craft staples.
What You Need
These common crafting staples will help you to make a neat looking, convincing row of corn stalks.
- Natural-colored raffia paper or green colored raffia for lively looking corn.
- Scissors
- Hot glue gun
- Hot glue sticks
- Yellow poster board and a black fine-tip marker
- 2-foot dowels
- 3-inch-thick Styrofoam base
Corn Stalk Prop Production
Cut three strips of the raffia paper about 1 foot long each. You can round these at the top but it is not necessary. You will scrunch them up a little bit to make it look realistic.
Cut a 6-inch rectangle out of the yellow paper and round the ends to make a long oblong shape. Either draw dime-sized circles in rows or draw scalloped lines in rows to represent the corn kernels. This will make the corncob. Glue one of the corncobs to the bottom, front of one of the raffia strips, length-ways.
Glue the other two strips of raffia to the yellow corn piece toward the bottom, one on each side. Cross the two raffia pieces slightly in front of the yellow paper to make it appear as if the yellow paper is inside the three raffia pieces. This is the corn part for the top of your stalk. Crumple the raffia pieces if desired to add an appearance of being wind blow and unkempt.
Glue the corn piece to the top of the 2-foot tall dowel with the dowel on the back of the corn. Allow the glue to dry, which usually take about 30 seconds. This is the corn stalk.
Repeat Steps 1-4 until you have made the number of corn stalks you need. Stick the stalks into the middle of a Styrofoam base at 2-inch intervals. You can make long rows or short rows depending upon the amount of Styrofoam you purchased or desire.
"Wizard of Oz" Play Production Tips
You can add a string to the end of the cornrow Styrofoam block. To make the characters appear to “move” from one scene to the next, you can pull on the string to move the cornfield off the stage. Dorothy and the Scarecrow can go “off to find the Wizard” in style.
The “The Wizard of Oz” is a favorite play of many schools due to its family-centric story, but the production costs are enormous if all the scenes are properly decorated. Cutting the budget in every way possible, without losing the quality of the production, is essential in the present, careful, economy.
A. L. Fetherlin - Author of "Brynn, the Exorcist" and former day care teacher who uses her home as an experiment in woodworking and building projects.
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