Items tagged "Rehearsal"

Directing youth theatre can be one of the most thrilling, rewarding, and exhausting jobs there is – because it’s not just about staging a play. It’s about creating an environment that fosters hard work, dedication, trust, and the willingness to take chances, to “play without fear.”

As a writer/teacher/director of youth theatre for over 15 years, I have developed tools and strategies that enable my students and me to focus on the process of creating theatre while fostering an environment that leads to creative freedom and a cohesive groups that doesn't act as individual “stars,” but as a community of one.

In this course, I will share with you these tips and strategies, along with the ways to implement them in your theatre environment.

In this class, Serious Play, the instructor will lead you through a series of games in risk, movement, focus, and voice. You will get access to a series of all inclusive games that you can string together to make one giant game that is great to use in rehearsal. You will learn how and when to use these games.

You'll get ideas on how to craft your own warm-up lesson plan; and, most importantly, you'll learn about about a pre-class warm-up that you can do on your own so that you can get yourself into that third stage of the creative brain, so that you can begin trying out interesting, creative, and risky choices for yourself in your classes and in rehearsals.

In this course, instructor Karen Loftus explores the responsibilities of a stage manager. You'll learn exercises that will help you demonstrate those responsibilities and the necessary skills of a stage manager to your students. You'll learn how to train your students to serve as stage managers for your school’s productions.

The course takes you through what a stage manager does prior to rehearsal and throughout the rehearsal and performance process to have a smooth-running backstage. It includes learning about the paperwork required, including prompt scripts, rehearsal preparations, notating blocking, and a stage manager’s kit and checklist to wrap it all together.

The focus of the teacher-director should be not only on the quality of the show, but on the value of the experience offered to student actors. This course takes you on this journey through practical rehearsal strategies that apply an ensemble approach.

This course starts with those all important first rehearsals, explores warm ups, and looks at character development. We examine specific types of plays, like classical texts and comedy, and conclude with strategies to solve common rehearsal problems.

Go beyond the basics!

Stage Managers have numerous responsibilities in the production process. This lesson will focus in on the things a stage manager does prior to and during blocking rehearsal from preparing for rehearsal, to taking blocking notation, to communicating important notes to other members of the production.

Pauses serve a great purpose in theatre. What's not being said in that pause? Here's an acting exercise to use in rehearsal.

Take a Drama Teacher Tune Up! We look at including mask work in the classroom, the rehearsal process, classroom management, and playwriting.

When you’ve been working on a scene for class or within a play for a while, sometimes things get stale. You know there’s something wrong with the moment, but can’t figure out what it is or where to go. Try these rehearsal exercises to shake up scene work.

Use this exercise in the early days of rehearsal or even as part of your audition process. It allows students to get into the physical side of a character without having to worry about hitting the “thees” and “thous.” This works well with any Shakespeare play.

Our second Drama Teacher Tune Up!

We look at including mask work in the classroom, Shakespeare, Close Reading, and Classroom Management..

A set of six reflection worksheets to use in rehearsals, group activities, and performance.

What steps should you take before you start rehearsals? Use this 8 step handout to get your students ready to rehearse.

This 3 page list of active verbs will help to get action out of your actors in a scene. Encourage the actors to play both physically and vocally with the verb.

Where does a director start with a play? Start with questions. Use this series of analytical and conceptual questions on your chosen text.

This is a sample six rehearsal schedule for a full length play. Use this as a model and modify according to your and your students' needs.

Learn the five keys that every actor needs to know when rehearsing a play - designed to help students to their best work.

A printable poster for your classroom - with some key reminders of the role of the audience.

A printable poster for your classroom or theatre - a few simple rules for theatre audience etiquette!

A rubric for a student to assess a partner's positive contribution and participation in rehearsals.

This page is designed to be cut into four so each student has a small rubric to follow, for their participation and positive contribution to rehearsals.

This handout is designed for an evaluator to assess rehearsal participation and positive contribution. Two rubrics per page.

It’s a question that comes up time and time again - How do I get my students to memorize their lines. What strategies do you use? Here are 7 strategies for students to use both on their own, and in rehearsal.

This handout lists all of the roles and positions that make up a theatre company.

The overview includes a table of contents outlining all of the resources in the Rehearsal Toolkit.

A guideline for starting rehearsals off on the right foot, including setting goals, expectations, and alternative strategies.

This resource includes a variety of warmup ideas for rehearsal, including physical warmups, vocal warmups, creativity warmups, and focus warmups.

The more you can invest your actors in the process of creation, the more they will stay engaged and interested throughout rehearsals. This resource explores alternatives to the traditional rehearsal process as well as alternatives to traditional blocking methods.

One of the biggest challenges directors face when working with inexperienced actors is the need to find creative ways to guide their character development. This resource includes exercises you can work into your rehearsals.

This resource addresses the challenge of classical texts, by exploring how practical drama activities can help students better identify with the complexity of the language.

If you are staging a comedy or a comedic scene, then you need to provide opportunities for your cast to play and laugh together at the beginning of rehearsals to encourage a spirit of light-hearted exploration and discovery. This resources helps you to adapt well-known activities to meet your needs,
depending on the type of comedy you need to explore.

This resources includes ideas and activities to address issues when the cast is struggling, or passion and commitment start to falter.

The final rehearsals before a show meets its audience are probably among the most critical. This resources includes exercises to help students become familiar with their production as a complete whole.

Use this template to track a duo scene, including play details, character details, objectives, obstacles, tactics, and more.

Use this template to track a monologue, including play details, character details, objectives, obstacles, tactics, and more.

The actor has to only ask one question—what does the character want to do? (Bill Ball, A Sense of Direction)
• The to-do part is essential. It leads to action, and action is at the core of the acting process.
• That’s why it’s called acting, not talking.
• The to-do provides the character with a purpose.
This resource offers a list of potential 'to-do's to apply to scene work.

Obstacles are the barriers and limitations the character must overcome to achieve their goal.
• Obstacles can be internal, such as emotional, psychological factors.
• External obstacles include an “other.”
• Obstacles are not limitations. Plays are about characters in conflict, characters in crisis.
• Obstacles spark creativity.
This worksheet helps actors define the obstacles in their scene work. What stops YOUR character?