PART ONE
GETTING STARTED
In which we warm up
Whatever the genre of play youâre rehearsing, whether itâs a classic comedy or a new drama, donât underestimate the value of a good warm-up. An actor has three tools to work with: body, voice and mind. Each can feel equally cold at the beginning of a long dayâs rehearsal. Coupled with that, if the company havenât worked together before, nerves may be running high. Either way, launching straight into Scene One wonât do anyone any favours.
In this section youâll find warm-up exercises for body, voice and mind, followed by a selection of ensemble games.
Physical Games are warm-ups to energise the body and help players tune in to physicality in preparation for work.
Vocal Games begin with simple technical exercises for vocal and breath control, before moving into singing and sound games to get the vocal cords buzzing.
Focus Games are all about the mind and imagination. They are quick-thinking spontaneity games in which the actors move out of the purely physical into the realms of character and scenario.
Finally, in Team Games youâll find exercises to help bond the group, either through physical proximity (Adeleâs Super-Hugs) or through working together inventively (The Boogie Pyramid or Top Knot). If youâre running a workshop specifically on ensemble-playing or trust, you could use these exercises to form the core of your session.
Physical Games â Warming Up the Body
1. Elastoplast
A variation on classic âItâ with added physical challenges.
How to Play
Ask everyone to spread out and find a space. Choose one player to be âItâ. Like conventional âItâ, the person who is up must try and tag someone by touching them. However, in this version players have a lifeline: plasters!
If someone is tagged, they can buy themselves an extra life by putting a âplasterâ (their hand) on the place where they were tagged. They then carry on playing, though they mustnât move their hand. If they get tagged again, they must use their other Elastoplast (their other hand) as a plaster, like the first. By this point theyâll be running with the handicap of having both their hands attached to their âwoundsâ.
When a player is tagged a third time, they must freeze and wait to be rescued. To rescue someone, two other players must come and lay a free hand on them, holding their hands on the frozen player for three counts. Then the player is âhealedâ and thus free to go again. If, however, someone is tagged mid-rescue, then they become âItâ too. Game play continues until everyone is either âItâ or frozen.
The Aim of the Game
To warm up the body and create a keen sense of focus. Effective play requires observation skills and quick-thinking, so itâs a good warm-up for the brain too.
Skills
Focus, Pace, Physicality
2. Jelly Beans
A high-speed, silly warm-up game⌠with almost 57 varieties.
How to Play
First, run through the following bean varieties with the group, making sure everyone knows all the beans and their associated actions:
⢠Jumping Bean: jump on the spot.
⢠Runner Bean: run around the space.
⢠Jelly Bean: wobble on the spot.
⢠Baked Bean: jumble around as if youâre being cooked.
⢠String Bean: stretch to become as tall and thin as you can.
⢠Broad Bean: stretch to maximise your surface area.
⢠French Bean: take a stereotypically French pose and say âooh la laâ.
⢠Frozen Bean: freeze. (This one is particularly useful if the game is getting a bit raucous.)
⢠Has Been: drop to the floor (or wilt, depending on how suitable it is for your cast to throw themselves on the floor).
Now, ask everyone to find a space. Then, very simply, call out bean types at random and the group must follow and behave as instructed. You might like to have music on for added beany zest. Feel free to add your own bean variations. Perhaps you could have a Pinter (Pinto) Bean variation, where everyone pauses. How about Fava Beans, Mung Beans, Refried Beans, Kidney Beans, Lima Beans⌠the world of pulses is your oyster.
The Aim of the Game
To warm up the group, and remove self-consciousness.
+ Recorded music
Skills
Confidence, Pace, Physicality
3. Running Man
A high-speed clowning warm-up to get the body and mind in gear.
How to Play
This is a part-clowning, part-physical-stamina-testing warm-up game. Everyone will need lots of energy.
Stand in a circle and play the music. Pick something with a quick tempo to get playersâ pulses racing. Classical music often works best because it doesnât have specific lyrics, so fits more organically with the various moods youâll be playing.
Now, everyone begins by running on the spot to the rhythm of the music, at a comfortable, enjoyable jog. Once the group have established the pace, you then throw in a new scenario and they must adapt their run to fit the situation. Itâs up to you whether you pause the music whilst you give your command, or speak over the top of it in order not to break the flow; it really depends how rowdy the game gets, and whether players need a breather. Here is a suggested plan. Feel free to add your own scenarios.
1. Regular run-on-the-spot.
2. A run in which you are trying desperately to snatch something (a carrot, a chocolate bar) hovering in the air in front of you, just out of reach.
3. Running away from a monster / gangster / girlfriendâs angry dad.
4. Running exhausted in a marathon â then suddenly realising youâre on TV.
5. Running along the beach in an American bikini commercial.
6. Running on the Moon.
7. Running in the final montage of a âno-hoper transforms into star athleteâ film in which, over the course of the run, the runner changes from a weakling to a running machine.
8. Running to deliver a letter (the participant chooses the content of the letter).
9. Crossing the finish line at the Olympic Games.
For a different style of play you might choose to play this game in slow motion. That way you can focus on the comic transitions from mood to mood, and encourage the participants to think carefully about facial expression and using their whole bodies for expression.
The Aim of the Game
To warm up the body physically and introduce elements of physical comedy.
+ Recorded music
Skills
Comedy, Pace, Physicality
4. Five Rhythms
A freestyle dance warm-up based on the popular â5Rhythmsâ movement practice.
How to Play
5Rhythms is a movement practice that was created by Gabrielle Roth in the 1970s. In its simplest form it involves the participants improvising free movement to a cycle of five different rhythms, which, between them, cover a variety of styles, dynamics and states of tension. They are danced in a cycle known as a âwaveâ. The music is played and the participants are left to explore movement in response to the music, dancing entirely for themselves, on their own âsoul journeyâ, as Roth calls it. No one is watching; this is dance for the dancer, not for an audience. Because everyone participates at the same time no one should feel like theyâre being watched by others.
You can use a simple short form as a warm-up, or do a longer workshop in which you allow participants about an hour to dance the whole rhythm cycle. If you choose the latter itâs worth building up to it by introducing the short form in earlier sessions. Whilst at first participants are often intimidated by the notion of dancing on their own,...