Exercise Articles for Drama Teachers

“Go, counsellor: Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain.” Juliet, Act III, scene v There are more relationships in Romeo and Juliet than just the one between Romeo and Juliet. We have...

Need a quick creative exercise? Have your students analyze titles, write titles, and come up with titles based on descriptions. A title is an important part of an artistic product. It acts as a...

One of the best activities for gathering writing ideas is observation. How are you experiencing the world around you? A great way to practice this is to have your students describe your classroom...

Students often get hung up on the notion that in the theatre, sets, costumes, and props all have to meet the standard of the movies. The world of the play has to be three-dimensional and real. A...

Awhile back, The Guardian compiled five of “the best video talks on theatre” and I wanted to share them with you as well. The article asks the question: “How can the performing arts compete against...

Here’s one of my favourite acting exercises.You start with a list of descriptive characters. Here are some examples: • A firefighter looking for occupants. • A jealous significant other. • A spy on...

Fear is such a wonderful motivator for characters – with both positive and negative connotations. How many of us know someone who won’t do something because of fear? Who won’t get on stage, or get...

Sometimes you just come across something that is Wicked Cool. That’s right, I capitalized both words and they weren’t at the beginning of a sentence. I did it, I own it. That’s how cool I think...

Do your student playwrights struggle with getting started? Sometimes the hardest part is coming up with that first line, because there’s nothing more daunting to a new writer than the blank page....

Ideas can come from anything and everything. But it’s always a good idea to give students a jumping off point. Picture Prompts are a great tool in a playwright’s arsenal to inspire creative...

Subtext is a glorious medium. It adds depth to a scene. There’s the conversation that two characters are having, and there’s the conversation underneath the conversation the two characters are...

What makes a good monologue? What criteria do you give to your students? Before students start writing their own monologue, it’s important for them to be able to identify and assess the elements of...

Who is the most interesting person you know? Who is the most interesting person your dad knows? Who is the most interesting person your boss knows? It could be a specific story, a whole history or...

Character analysis can be done in many forms: • You can analyze a character in a play you’re studying. • You can analyze a character you’re playing in a production. • You can analyze a character in...

How do people create illusion out of harsh reality? In the play A Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche Dubois works hard at creating an illusion. She tells lies about her past so that others see her in...

“Shakespeare is too hard… Shakespeare is too old… I can’t relate to Shakespeare….” It’s one thing to tell students that they should study Shakespeare, it’s another thing to get them engaged in the...

Performances are rarely the only area where learning occurs in the drama classroom. What goes on during instruction, what happens in rehearsals and group work, how problems arise and are solved —...

Ideas are not magical ponies. They don’t appear instantly. Writers know they have to look for ideas. The more they look for them, the more ideas they have. The key with ideas is not to focus on the...