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Games, Exercises, & Activities

Quick activities. Real results.

Find low-prep drama exercises that build skills, boost participation, and fit into any class.

Games & Exercises

Drama Sensory Series: Sight-Based Games and Exercises

This month, we’re going to be using the five senses (sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch) as the basis for exercises and theatre games. This week, we’re looking at sight-based exercises:...
Games & Exercises

10 Super-Quick Warm-Up Games

Warm-ups are important to get students into the drama mindset, but sometimes you only have a few moments to spare. When time is at a premium, get your classes started in a jiffy with these 10...
Games & Exercises

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...
Games & Exercises

Exercise: Kindness in Conflict

In this exercise, students will pair up to write and perform two short scenarios in which a conflict occurs, exploring how kindness can change the dynamics of the conflict. For this exercise,...
Games & Exercises

Improv Fun & Games: A Minute of Kindness

Here’s a quick and easy improv exercise you can use when you have a few minutes of time to fill in class, or whenever you want to spread a little kindness with your students. You’ll need a timer...
Playwriting

Kindness Improvised Scenes

When you can improvise a scene about anything, why not focus on kindness? Incorporating kindness into drama class activities helps students develop the ensemble mindset and creates a more positive,...
Games & Exercises

Challenge Exercise: Abstract Tableau Scenes

Abstract theatre focuses on representing themes, ideas, situations, and emotions in a visual, stylized, symbolic way, rather than acting them out realistically. Using stylized physicality, students...
Games & Exercises

Exercise: Full-Class Tableau

If you’ve got a large group of drama students but not a lot of time, try these two quick full-class tableau exercises. Students will work together to create full-class tableau scenes as fast as...
Games & Exercises

Warm-Up Game: Tableau Mixer

This warm-up game is a variation of the game “Numbered Tableaux”. It’s similar to the camp game “Chicken in the Hen House,” but adjusted to be safer for the drama classroom, and focused on creating...
Games & Exercises

Middle School Miming: Still, Slippery, Sticky

In our previous Middle School Miming article, students explored using their hands and arms to maneuver invisible objects of various sizes around a circle. Now, we’re adding moving throughout the...
Games & Exercises

Middle School Miming: Big, Small, Heavy, Light

Students new to mime will often just start moving their hands haphazardly, like an item magically appeared in their hand out of thin air. But one of the ways a mimed object is made “real” is by...
Games & Exercises

Choice Board Activity: Switching Genres

Switching up the genre of an existing play can be a lot of fun. Take Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet — there have been lots of theatrical and film adaptations of that play, such as West Side Story...
Games & Exercises

Time Filler Activity: Mindful Minutes

If students are feeling stressed or anxious, it can be helpful to share some techniques and exercises to help them calm down, regulate themselves, and re-centre, so they can go about the rest of...
Games & Exercises

Time-Filler Activity: Blank: The Musical

If you’ve ever wished that there were a musical about your favourite topics or random ideas, then this time-filler activity will be right up your alley. You can structure this activity in a variety...
Games & Exercises

Time Filler Activity: Everything You Know

Are you curious to know what your students know about a particular topic? Or do you wonder about what they actually retained from your last lesson? The following activity is a good way to find out...
Games & Exercises

Time Filler Activities: Symbol Stories

Sometimes you have a few minutes at the end of class where you need to keep your students occupied, but you don’t want to start a new exercise or let the class devolve into mindless chatter. Enter...