Acting is the most minor of gifts and not a very high-class way to earn a living. After all, Shirley Temple could do it at the age of four. - Katherine Hepburn Summary Games as warmups in class ("wrong number" and other favorites) Do I have to spend some time on writing yoga-BM warmups? I see lists of exercises in every acting textbook (new: Benedetti -- 9th edition!), but they know the rutine of warming up after a single show experience. I have same doubts about Bordanov's workshops in biomechanics. Maybe the exercises are not connected with the practical tasks (working on mono and scene)? Maybe they should be tailored to each individual actor? The musicians do have their solfegio exercises... Questions Notes The Possessed 2003 Games and improv are introduced at the very begining of the course; in order for us to use them as rehearsal techniques when we do monologues and scenes. "Games" are difficult to put on paper, there are many elements in acting which are impossible to put online.

Games

This page was "the theatre games I use in class".... Restoring the page or leave this topic to others?

See biomx directory!

Acting BM Cycles We all love games, but everything about theatre is about PLAY... Could you do it by yourself before each class, please?

[ related pages: interact, move, improv -- link * ]

Simposia, Discussion, Feedback

Dionysos: This my page! My class!

Apollo: Okay! All right!

Meyerhold: Let me do it!

Stanislavsky: Don't get physical with me, young man!

NAME Game 1: A game for the first day of class, so that everyone learns each others’ names.

The participants sit or stand in a circle. The leader says, "We are having a party, and everyone has to bring something for the party that begins with the same first letter as their name. My name is JANINE, and I am bringing a bag of JELLYBEANS." The person to the leader’s right says his name and item, and then repeats the leader’s name and item: "My name is ERIK, I am going to bring EGG SALAD. This is JANINE, who is bringing JELLYBEANS." Each person in turn introduces himself, announces their item, and repeats the name and item of everyone who preceded them. This means that the last person has to remember everyone in the group, or at least try. The leader should encourage others to help out when participants get stuck on someone’s name or item, with verbal or pantomimed clues.

NAME Game 2: Participants learn each other’s names with the help of gestures.

Participants stand in a circle, and each person in turn says their name, at the same time executing a gesture that expresses their personality. For younger participants, the leader can suggest that the gesture shows a favorite hobby, sport or activity. After everyone has shared their name and gesture, the participants play "tag" with the names and gestures. While standing still, the participants can tag each other one at a time by saying a person’s name and repeating their gesture. The leader should encourage the participants to get to everyone’s name without repeats, so that all members of the group are included.

YOU: Participants enhance their communication skills by passing "you" from one person to another.

Participants stand in a circle. One person starts by gesturing towards someone else in the circle and saying "You." That participant then gestures and says "you" passing it to another person in the circle. There is no particular order or sequence for the "you", but as it is passed, the energy of gesture and volume of the "you" increases. This continues until one participant achieves such energy and volume that the person to whom she is passing the "you" realizes that he cannot top it. The energy and volume then begins to decrease in steps until the gesture disappears and the "you" is not heard, only mouthed. From there, the mouthing stops, the "you" is passed with movement of the eyes, and eventually nothing happens to indicate who has the "you", but it is still being passed around the circle. It will get lost very soon after this point, but the participants will feel as if they have had a psychic connection with each other.

To communicate the idea of a GENERAL activity, each actor must pantomime a SPECIFIC one.

For example: "Office work".

One actor mimes being a typist, another delivers the mail, another is a "boss" at a desk (perhaps on the phone), a client visits the office to see the boss, etc.

The audience then guesses the general activity and then talks about the specific ones.

Make sure the actors understand they cannot SPEAK - only work with their bodies, facial expressions, etc.

MOVEMENT: 1. Start with students lying on the floor. Ask them to create the following things - individually - using only their body and sounds:

bacon frying porridge bubbling an egg boiling ice cream melting a blender crushing ice popcorn popping

2. Working in pairs have the students create the following:

a vacuum cleaner cleaning a fridge with a door that opens a lawn mower mowing a kettle heating up

Discuss the things that worked really well and why .

3. Now, working in groups of 4 have the students create a frozen statue of the following appliances. When the teacher claps, the appliance will begin to work. Everyone must be involved in the appliance - no operators!

a coffeemaker a toaster a washing machine

*Have each group perform individually and encourage applause from the audience.

4. Working in the same groups of 4 , have the students create a mode of transportation in both a statue and working form. Each member must be involved in the item - again, no operators.

After each "performance", have the other groups guess what the mode of transportation was and offer what they think the best thing about the performance was. What did they do great?

*suggestions Skateboards, motorcycles, ATV's, speed boats, bikes, busses, cars, helicopters, wheelbarrows…

5. End with a game of Machines. One student starts making a sound and simple movement in the center of the room. Add students, one at a time, who will have their own sound and movement that interacts with the ever- growing machine on stage. Continue until all students are part of the machine - which will be very loud!

PS

Folks, I will restore the pages on Method after I am done with teaching THR221 Intermediate Acting (Biomechanics)

Homework

Next : Improv

• MUSEUM EXERCISE (Combined with Michael Howard’s Museum Exercise)
Go to the museum of your choice. Find a portrait that appeals to you, a person who tells you a story. Create the life and character of this person, write a monologue which deals with the circumstances in the painting. Why is this person there, in the painting? What does she want? What does he do for a living? Ask as many questions as you can come up with to create your story. Then, after the monologue is written, physically recreate the painting as much as you can to the exact specifications of the artist. Find clothes that match, props, even a limited set, if you have the means. Work on the first moment, the statue of the character, in other words, that frozen moment in time which is captured on canvas. Then come to life on stage and tell your story. End the story by going back into the canvas and becoming the painting again. This is a wonderful exercise designed to help with firing the imagination into story telling through character, with statue and body work, and it’s a great exercise in learning how to do script analysis.

• STRUCTURE BREAKDOWN ASSIGNMENTS
Everyone is assigned to read the same play. Then, scene by scene, the students learn to break down the play into story structure, character analysis, intentions, obstacles, theme, etc. Then everyone performs five minutes of the scene with a partner, to further explore individual choices within the script analysis.

[ http://www.actorsinprocess.com/sampex.html ]

A FEW GROUP WARM UP EXERCISE SAMPLES

• BREATHING AND RELAXATION
The students begin each and every class with this simple exercise. They sit in a chair, hands resting comfortably in their laps, eyes closed. They breathe deeply and concentrate on relaxing each part of the body with their breath. Actors cannot work at the top of their form without knowing how to release their muscles and engage their breath. If they do not warm up properly, tension will remain in their muscles, and their breath will hold in emotions and creative impulses and the instrument will not play.

• STATUE
This is done as a group warm up. As the students warm up and breathe and open up their instruments, they are asked to think of a monologue they are currently working on and say the words silently on their lips, as their bodies begin to release tension. This usually brings up emotional baggage from the day or week or holiday du jour, and the student is encouraged to allow this baggage to move through the body and not hold on to it. Holding the emotion creates tension, tension freezes the instrument. The actor is silently running the lines of the monologue on his lips, and emotions are coming up, then the students think of an emotional gesture which would best describe what they are feeling as their characters. They freeze in a statue. They move deeper and deeper into statue work with different emotional suggestions from me. It can go further by dividing the students up in partners and one is then asked to share their statue work with the other. The other is then asked to repeat exactly the statue created by his partner. They then switch and repeat the process. Much of our emotional creativity comes from muscle memory and this exercise is helpful to learn that. Going further, the exercise can be incorporated into character work, by finding more physicality for the character, body positions and centers of gravity, and sometimes even the position the audience finds the character in when the curtain rises. The possibilities are endless.

Foreign Film Dub - Russian - The Vodka Express [ improv, see more ]