Aladdin’s Cave of Wonders
cave of foam
In June of 2016, Birmingham Children’s Theatre did a production of Aladdin Jr. for its annual summer camp production. One of the pieces needed for the show was a giant tiger head which is the entrance for the magical Cave of Wonders. This larger then life scenic piece is an iconic piece from the movie. After multiple meetings with our Scenic Designer on how we could achieve this, a giant double side foam sculpture was what we landed on. I already had a good bit of 6” thick 4’ x 8’ sheets of white beaded foam in stock, so the list of materials was very manageable for the budget of the show. The scenic charge artist that was hired for the show was also a very skilled and talented sculptor who was able to sculpt the finer details of the piece.
Construction
I started by drafting out the different layers of the piece so that I could use a projector to project each different layer onto the foam to layout each layer.
Laying out the layers on 4’ x 8’ sheets of white bead foam.
Layers cut out with a 10’ jigsaw blade.
Using Gorilla Glue to glue the layers into one piece.
Our Scenic Charge Artist carving out the details.
All carved and ready for paint.
We mixed Elastomeric Roof Coating and our base color together for our base layer. We used Elastomeric Roof Coating because it would help protect the foam from getting knicked up and chipping off.
To stand the piece up on a platform so it could move around, we attached jacks, Gorilla Glue, and 6” screws to keep the unit upright.
We then covered the jacks with foam scrap and carved them to look like rocks and painted them.
The eyes
In order to get the eyes to glow red, I made light-boxes with red gel and 2 LED Recessed Can Lights. I then wired them to a battery with a switch so that before the lights came up onstage, the eyes could be turned by the actor hiding behind the unit.
