Drama Games for Rehearsals

Jessica Swale

• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781780018355
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Acting & Auditioning

'I wish I'd had this book when I was starting out as a young director... I cannot recommend it highly enough' Marianne Elliott, from her Foreword

This dip-in, flick-through, quick-fire resource book in the bestselling Drama Games series offers dozens of ideas and exercises to energise and inspire a bold, creative rehearsal process for any play, of any period or genre.

Aimed at directors of all levels, it covers every aspect of rehearsal, including:

• Warm-up exercises to prepare the body, voice and mind, and to create a strong ensemble
• Ideas for approaching the text, tackling the 'Story of the Play'
• A wealth of games for unlocking the 'World of the Play', including developing characters, finding a physical style, understanding genre and investigating themes
• Suggestions for exploring sound and music, whether for use in the production or simply to encourage a sense of fun in rehearsals

This essential 'go-to' book will provide you with a host of original and illuminating games, perfect for the play you're rehearsing, be it Shakespeare or Greek tragedy, a Restoration comedy, physical theatre, Modern Naturalism – or even a brand new play.

Marianne Elliott, one of the most innovative and exciting directors working anywhere in the world, describes it as a 'beautiful, and very clearly written book' which will become her 'constant companion in future'.

PART ONE

GETTING STARTED

In which we warm up

Whatever the genre of play you’re rehearsing, whether it’s a classic comedy or a new drama, don’t 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 day’s rehearsal. Coupled with that, if the company haven’t worked together before, nerves may be running high. Either way, launching straight into Scene One won’t do anyone any favours.

In this section you’ll 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 you’ll find exercises to help bond the group, either through physical proximity (Adele’s Super-Hugs) or through working together inventively (The Boogie Pyramid or Top Knot). If you’re running a workshop specifically on ensemble-playing or trust, you could use these exercises to form the core of your session.

Physical Games – Warming Up the Body

1. Elastoplast

A variation on classic ‘It’ with added physical challenges.

How to Play

Ask everyone to spread out and find a space. Choose one player to be ‘It’. Like conventional ‘It’, 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 ‘plaster’ (their hand) on the place where they were tagged. They then carry on playing, though they mustn’t 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 they’ll be running with the handicap of having both their hands attached to their ‘wounds’.

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 ‘healed’ and thus free to go again. If, however, someone is tagged mid-rescue, then they become ‘It’ too. Game play continues until everyone is either ‘It’ 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 it’s 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 you’re 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 ‘ooh la la’.

• 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 players’ pulses racing. Classical music often works best because it doesn’t have specific lyrics, so fits more organically with the various moods you’ll 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. It’s 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 / girlfriend’s angry dad.

4. Running exhausted in a marathon – then suddenly realising you’re 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 ‘no-hoper transforms into star athlete’ 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 ‘5Rhythms’ 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 ‘wave’. The music is played and the participants are left to explore movement in response to the music, dancing entirely for themselves, on their own ‘soul journey’, 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 they’re 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 it’s 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,...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Acknowledgements
• Part One – Getting Started
• Part Two – The Story of The Play
• Part Three – The World of The Play
• Part Four – Sound and Music
• Part Five – ‘Beginners’
• Index of Games
• Skills
• Alphabetical List
• About the Author
• Copyright Information