Games, Exercises, & Activities

This exercise was inspired by one of my favourite theatre games, Tableau Scenes from a Book. If you haven’t tried that game with your students yet, do that first! In the original version of the...

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...

A common acting exercise for students is to imagine what their character is doing next when they exit a scene, and what they’re doing when they aren’t onstage. We’re turning that exercise into a...

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...

There are times when you need a game that doesn’t require much explanation to get started. This is a great game to play with your students at the end of the term when they (or you) are feeling...

The following exercise is a large-scale culminating project for your entire class. Students will form small groups and work together to create design concepts for a play in six areas of technical...

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...

What better way to welcome students into the drama department than allowing them to make a grand entrance through a decorated door? Many teachers enjoy door decorating for holiday contests, spirit...

One of the (many!) wonderful things about theatre is that magic becomes real on the stage. Fantastical stories are brought to life in the most inventive and interesting ways to keep audiences...