It’s common for young or beginning drama students to get wiggly or fidgety onstage, especially if they’re part of the ensemble or not speaking, singing, or dancing at that moment. It’s as though they’ve forgotten that even though they aren’t the immediate focus of the scene, they’re still visible! And if they’re fidgeting, they’re likely pulling focus, and not in a good way.
If your actors seem to have ants in their pants onstage, read on for three tips to help them embrace the beauty of stillness.
Have your students actively practice stillness. Teach your students about neutral position and how to get into it. The neutral position is where students are standing in a strong, relaxed, supported state, ready to work and to take on a character. It’s like a blank canvas or lump of clay — absent of character traits and ready to create something with.
First, have students stand with their feet slightly apart and flat on the floor. Legs are strong and knees are not locked. Spine is straight. They should keep their arms by their sides (not fixing their hair, adjusting clothes, or scratching), with soft shoulders and fingers. Heads should be up so audience members can see the actors’ faces, not the tops of their heads. Students should imagine a long string is pulling them up so their back and neck are straight, shoulders are back and relaxed, and they are standing tall. Faces should be kept in a neutral position too, with a calm, relaxed jaw and forehead. Have students choose a focal point at which to direct their gaze. And just because at least one student will always ask — yes, students can always blink and breathe while practicing neutral.
Once students are in the neutral position, using a timer, have them hold the position for five seconds. Five seconds doesn’t sound like a lot, but it’s more challenging than students tend to think. Each day, have students practice taking neutral and holding the pose for at least the five seconds, or add on another second of stillness. Try to build up to 30 seconds of stillness. The more students practice stillness, the easier it will become. This stillness can then be practiced onstage during group scenes. Have students stand in neutral offstage, take a breath (both inhale and exhale), and enter the scene. If students feel that they’re about to fidget, have them come back to neutral and remember the feeling of stillness.
Be sure to check out the Reflecting on Neutral Position questions at the bottom of this article.
Sometimes it helps for students to have a specific task that their character is doing to help them remain in character and in the moment of the scene. Have students re-read the scene and determine what action(s) their character might be doing, and why. This is especially important for background or ensemble actors, or larger cast scenes. Why is their character in that scene, beyond “The director told me to enter and stand there”? Each student should have some specific “thing” to do that is appropriate for the scene that’s occurring and for the character they are playing. For example, if the scene is set in a classroom, the actors might be writing in notebooks, studying, drawing pictures on the chalkboard, or asleep at their desks. If the scene is set at the beach, the actors might be building sandcastles, applying sunscreen, or playing volleyball. Get even more specific and determine which students are working together on their activities, or if they will switch activities/character groups partway through the scene. Give students exact cue lines of when to change activities, move to a different part of the stage, or exit altogether.
Practice miming those activities individually or in small groups (as the director determines), then have students practice the actions as a large group onstage, to ensure everything times out well and that actors aren’t pulling focus in a negative way. This way, students’ actions are purposeful and planned, rather than fidgety.
There might be a non-theatrical reason why students are fidgeting. Maybe their costume is itchy or too tight and it’s bothering them. If so, get the student a different item to wear. Some students might benefit from having a prop to hold, to give their hands something to do. Other students might benefit from having a small, discreet fidget item that they can hide in a pocket or in the palm of their hand, to squeeze if they feel like they need to wiggle around. Maybe it would be easier for the student if they could be seated during the scene, rather than standing in one place for a long time.
Some students might also just not be ready to be onstage in the background for the full length of the scene, and that’s ok. As long as it works with the script, give those students specific entrance and exit cues during the scene. Alternatively, a student may need to be removed from the scene altogether, which again, is ok — not everyone has to be onstage for every scene in every show.
Bonus Tips: