Acting Technique

“Body language accounts for 60% of our understanding of emotions, our reception of subliminal messages and our grasp of relationships.” - Ron Cameron-Lewis, Acting Skills for Life Student actors...

What is THE most important part of an actor’s job? To tell a story to an audience! No matter what, the audience needs to be able to experience what’s going on during the performance. Actors must...

A character’s physicality is part of the actor’s toolkit. Physicality, along with voice and imagination, helps to tell a story, no matter if you’re doing a mime, tableau, monologue, or scene. The...

What do Julie Andrews, James Earl Jones, and Jim Parsons have in common? Besides names that start with J, these stars are among the many actors and actresses that enjoy successful careers both on...

Ontario teachers Claire Broome, Colin Oliver, and Carmelina Martin put together this awesome exercise that gets students to create their own vocal workout. Thank you so much for letting us share it...

When you’re rehearsing a musical close to performance week, the last thing you want to hear is that one of your students can’t sing. Promoting vocal health in young singers is crucial. Here’s how...

The Vowel Tree Exercise enables us to practice making sounds with our voice and exploring the entire vocal range from low to high. It allows us to be vocally impulsive in a non-judgemental way....

If you want your characters to be three dimensional, you have to consider their voice. What words do they choose? What’s the structure of their language? How do they communicate? A character...

The actor’s job is to tell the story of the play to the audience. Proper enunciation is essential for the audience to have any idea of what the actor is saying or singing during a production....

Tongue twisters are a fantastic tool to use in drama classes and rehearsals. They help students to warm up their voices, improve diction and enunciation, and get their brains moving! But repeating...

Directors and teachers, we’ve all been there: You’ve cast a wonderful young actor in a role that is fantastic and challenging for them. You get into the rehearsal room and all of a sudden, it’s...

Breath control is so important for performers, whether they’re in rehearsal, onstage, or somewhere in between. Breath control affects the range, volume, and speed of both speaking and singing....

Do your students know how to annotate a script for analysis? Script analysis gives every actor a foundation to build on for character development. Teach these steps to your students and they’ll...

Need acting exercises for your drama classroom? Here are 5 of Theatrefolk’s most popular exercises to help inspire student actors, from monologues to ensembles. 1.“Channel That Fear”Fear is such a...

Beginning actors make mistakes. Mostly it’s because, well, they’re beginners! I prefer thinking of them is missteps rather than mistakes – they are things the beginning actor hasn’t considered. And...

Auditions happen everywhere at every level, from middle school plays, to high school musicals, to college admissions. Audition styles range from prepared monologues, to cold readings, to group...

A common challenge for student actors is the gap between intention and presentation. There is a difference between what students intend to put on stage and what they actually do.  Students often...

Jennine Profeta is an improv star and educator (you can find her in the Theatrefolk Resource Section with Impowerment Improv and Improv Games with Purpose as well as in the Drama Teacher Academy!)...