How to Fly a Kite in the House

[mhstc]

I am the prop mistress and stage manager for my high school's theatre company and we are doing Little Women (the musical). There is a scene in the show when one of the characters flies a kite and my director wants to be able to fly it out into the house over the audience from on stage, but she also wants to have the actress let the kite string go so that the kite "can fly away". I was wondering if anyone had an idea about how I might be able to go about doing this.
This is much appreciated, Thank You!

[Maribeth]

I've done a kite trick before with someone in the catwalk who has a fishing pole. The end of the line has a hook on it (I think we used a jewelry hook of some kind) and at some point the end of the line is set onstage (we did it at intermission). An actor or crew person hooks the kite to the line, and then the person in the catwalk can reel in the line to make the kite "fly". You could also have it swing over the audience this way, and I would think that to make it "fly away" you would just pull it straight up into the catwalks.

This trick really depends on what kind of theatre you're in. Works better in a big proscenium house- for a smaller theatre you would have to adapt it somehow.

[Jessie_K]

We did a similar trick for a scarf flight in my show Voyage de la Vie.  Use strong fishing line or you run the risk of it breaking.  Have an ASM standing by with a pair of scissors to cut the line in case of technical difficulties - TRUST ME.