Acting Class Starters

During roll call:

Have two students each pull a name or a number out of a hat. One of the corresponding students will pull a card with a line on it from another hat and begin the improv.

As the semester advances, one of the students will be engaged in some sort of activity when the second student enters the scene with a line.

GETTING ACQUAINTED EXERCISES

SIX TRUTHS and a LIE
Students write down six truthful things and one lie. At the end kids try to figure out the lie.

TV CHAT HOST:
Pass out two different colored papers

Have one group, Group A, answer these questions:
1. First name and why you are called that.
2. Your favorite band, film, t.v. show, performer.
3. Your favorite food or color.
4. What was your first pet's name and what was it?

This famous line is from a play. Fill in the blanks so it makes sense, but if you know the line, then try not to fill in the blanks with the right words:

To_______or not to ___________that is the question.

Group B answers these questions:
1. First name and why you were called that.
2. Your favorite food or color.
3. What was the name of your first pet and what was it?
4. Are you a morning or a night person?

This famous line is from a movie. Fill in the blanks so it makes sense, but if you know the line, then try not to fill in the blanks with the right words:

Toto, I've got a ____________ we're not in _______________ anymore.

Pair up or allow them to pair up, each person with one color of paper, pairing up with another person with a different color of paper.  The pair exchange papers and discuss their answers; then they introduce each other to the class.

Acting Exercises: Kindergarten Class and Trip to New York

Acting exercises:
Kindergarten Class:
Drama Teacher's Survival Guide
Pages 28 - 30
Character and Objective:
Teacher: to have students sit quietly and listen to a story
Student A: to have teacher notice what a polite child he or she is
Student B: to get the teacher to allow him or her to go to the bathroom
Student C: to listen to the story
Student D: to be helpful to the teacher
Student E: to play with a toy in his/her pocket
Student F: to get close to and get the attention of Student A
Student G: to get Student E in trouble without getting in trouble him/herself.
Student H: To get Student C to look at him or her
Student I: To give a piece of candy to Student D to make D like her or him.
Student J: To get a piece of candy from Student I
Student K: To get Students F and H to look at a picture of her/his puppy.

Take the students aside and tell them their objectives.

Have one student play the principal who comes in to check up on the teacher. All the kids are terrified of the principal and do not want to get sent to the office.  The teacher may send a disruptive student out with the principal. If the teacher does so, then the student must leave the scene.

After the improv, ask the actors the following questions:
Were the actors playing children able to draw on their own experiences to help them in the scene?
Did the actors actually feel the experience of being a child in a kindergarten class?
Did the actor playing the teacher feel any genuine emotion in the scene? What were they?
What was each actor's objective?


Trip to New York:
Drama Teacher's Survival Guide
Pages 30 - 31

Set up chairs to suggest a bus, with a table for the ticket seller in a corner. Choose twelve students who will each play a character with an objective the director will give them. They are not to divulge their objectives before the improv.

Character and Objective:
1. Teenage girl who is going to meet her boyfriend whom her parents do not like.
2. A guy who's pretending to be a cool, rich guy.
3. A nervous woman who is going to meet her online boyfriend for the first time.
4. A middle-aged person who is going to be a stage actor in New York.
5. An old person who is going to visit her grandchildren
6. A person who is trying to convince everyone the end of the world is near.
7. A young woman who is about to be deployed to Iraq to fight.
8. A young man who is upset that he didn't get the job he applied for.
9. A nervous person who is trying to skip town before he/she gets arrested.
10. An undercover agent who is following a suspect to arrest
11. An eight year old child who is waiting for her mother who never arrives.
12. A young person enrolling in NYU for her freshman year of college.

A ticket-seller, the bus driver and a security guard are also in the scene.

The scene opens with the ticket-seller, the security guard, the bus driver and the 8 year old child already on stage.

The actors must follow their objectives truthfully, without stereotypes. The scene ends when the director ends it; the actors cannot force an early conclusion, such as a bomb exploding or the bus driver dying.

After the scene, the audience shares what they observed about the actors' characters and motives.
Ask the actors the same questions that the kindergarten actors answered.