10 Low- or No-Prep Theatre Exercises

Sometimes you just need exercises that are quick, easy, and don't require you to do extensive prep work. Maybe you’ve got a substitute teacher covering for you, maybe you’re just trying to survive tech week, or maybe it’s one of those days where you just can’t even. For those times, we’ve got you covered with the following low- or no-prep theatre exercises!

1. Middle School Miming: Great for high school students too, and requires no equipment other than your body and imagination. Start with Preparatory Skills, and then move on to Interacting with a Wall, and Interacting with a Door as your students gain confidence and skills.

2. "Ruin a Play": All you need is a list of titles of existing plays and/or musicals. Ruin the play, have a laugh, then have students invent a synopsis of the new show, create a cast of characters, and do a “dream casting” of the characters, using their friends and/or celebrities to play the roles. Bonus points for students explaining why they chose those particular people to play the roles.

3. Two Prompts: If you can print two lists of prompts from our website, you can play this game with your students! If you can’t print the lists, you can still play — just look at the lists on a Chromebook or on your phone.

4. Got a big group of students? Try a large group tableau exercise or even one of these two full-class tableau exercises. It’s helpful if you have a classroom with a large mirror or a digital camera to take photos so students can see themselves, but it’s not necessary to do the activity.

5. Character Analysis Exercise: Three exercises in one. Students can use it to analyze a character in a play the class is studying, a character they’re playing in a production, or a character in a play they’re writing themselves. Plus, the questions are right there in the article and ready to print.

6. If your students need inspiration for playwriting, look no further than the clothes they’re wearing. All students need to complete the Clothing Prompt playwriting exercise is a writing device and a piece of clothing or an accessory that they have on their person.

7. For more experienced drama students in a director’s craft class, challenge them with this problem solving exercise, which includes 10 scenarios, an exit slip, and an evaluation rubric. Students can complete the exercise individually, in pairs, or in small groups.

8. Choice board activities are great for self-directed learning. Here are two great choice board exercises ready to go for you: Portraying Emotions and Switching Genres. Both exercises even have rubrics included as a bonus.

9. If your students seem down or blue, have them complete a series of positive self-talk exercises. All they need is a writing device and/or a partner, depending on which of the exercises you choose to do. You give them the prompt and they respond to it, and hopefully completing the exercises helps students feel better about themselves.

10. Got 10 minutes to fill? Try one of these 10-Minute Time-Filler Activities when you’re short on time and need zero-prep activities. These activities range from improv to writing to cleaning out the drama classroom, and are quick and easy to implement. You’ve got this!