Games, Exercises, & Activities

Giants, Elves, Wizards is a classic game used in drama classes, sports, Scouts, and more. It’s basically a life-sized version of Rock, Paper, Scissors (or “Roshambo” in some areas) with a chasing...

Live special effects are exciting! They create memorable moments onstage that audience members will talk about long afterwards. But how is this theatre magic created? What elements go into bringing...

It’s easy for students to downplay their accomplishments, brush off compliments, and outright tear themselves down mentally or verbally. Negative self-talk can seriously affect students’ confidence...

During the first few drama classes, we drama teachers often lean heavily on icebreaker questions to get to know our students better and to get them to talk to each other. However, some students...

Many getting to know you games consist of students sharing interesting facts about themselves and their personalities. In this game, students will discover things they have in common with their...

Here’s a choice board exercise that’s all about emotions. You can use this list for students to complete single tasks (just have students select one assignment out of the many advertised below), or...

The improv game “The Next Chapter” is a fun full-class activity. It takes the traditional “Freeze” improv game and turns it on its head. In that game, small groups of students create an improvised...

If you’ve had to deal with more absences than usual, or you’d like your students to learn more about the roles of understudies and swings, or your students just need a good problem-solving...

Drama class is a fantastic place to learn transferrable skills and work towards applying them to real-life situations. No matter what the exercise is, there is always a transferable skill to...

“I don’t want to be an actor!” is one reason why students may not want to take drama class. However, there are a whole host of careers in the theatre that aren’t acting. The following individual...

Here is a group project that is a great complement to our last blog post, Theatre in the Real World: Theatre Company Profile. Your students have been introduced to various theatre companies, all...

The following project is a research assignment, where students will research and present a written profile of an existing theatre company. To complete the project, they will need to make a number...

In this small group exercise, students will write a creative summary of the plot of a play using the ABCB, or “simple 4-line” rhyme scheme. This exercise focuses on creative thinking and teamwork....

Advertisements and commercials can be entertaining, educational, heart wrenching, and hilarious. Ultimately though, the goal is to grab your attention, tell you about the product, and get you to...

The following theatre game is a variation of the exercise “The 20 Step Process“. In The 20 Step Process, students are challenged to make a simple task comically complicated. In Origin Story,...

The following exercise challenges students to explore character movement by focusing on the speed of movements. This exercise is mental and physical — students will brainstorm a list of characters...

This exercise is inspired by the theatre game The Machine, where students work together to create parts of a factory machine with repeated movements and sound. In The 20-Step Process, we take this...

If you’ve spent approximately 3.1 seconds on the internet, you’ll have encountered a meme. If you’ve seen or heard of Grumpy Cat, Condescending Wonka, Surprised Pikachu, Woman Yelling at a Cat, or...