Theatre Games @ Home Games. Exercises and Ideas to try at home from the Education Team at The Met, Bury
All the games in this guide are designed to be played with family members or as solo drama exercises. Some of the exercises and prompt can double up as stimulus for creative writing projects too! Drama doesn’t always have to be about the final product, you don’t have to be a fantastic actor to have a great time with these games and exercises, the process of playing them helps to improve confidence, cognitive skills, quick thinking, problem solving, rhythm and literacy.
You can see a description of three of these games in our Warm-Up games video right here
We've also made a few videos explaining some of the games in this resource so look for the Pink Links and click through to see some of our team talking you through the activities.
Warm-Up Games When we run our drama sessions, we always start with a warm-up game. These games help to get those creative juices flowing, warm-up the body (just like you do before sport) and warm-up the brain. Whoosh This game can be played with three or more people, it’s designed to be played in a circle but you can make whatever shape you need to make. The essence of the game is passing a sound and movement around the circle; a ‘Whoosh’. The sound should be loud, clear and accompanied with a swishing arm movement in the direction that you are passing the whoosh. It moves from person to person all the way around till it gets back where it started. BUT anyone can stop the Whoosh and make it go back the opposite way by holding up their hands in front of them and saying ‘Wow’! If the Whoosh gets stuck between two Wows then it can be fired out to someone else with a ‘Shazam!’, accompanied by a point of an imaginary magic wand in the direction of the person you’re passing to. You can throw silly things into the game too such as... GROOVELICIOUS which is started off by one person saying the word and doing their best go-go dancing move which should then be copied by everyone else. FREAKOUT where one person throws their hands in the air and says FREAKOUT and the rest of the group then follow by coming into the middle of the space and shouting FREAKOUT before returning to the game. The rule with all these novelty additions is that it has to be your turn before you can make one happen (ie. You have been passed the Whoosh) and you can’t do more than two straight after each other. Feel free to make up your own! President, President President, President is a game all about concentration and rhythm. First, assign each member of your group one of the ‘names’ in the game. These are: President, Vice, Treasurer, Secretary (and if you have more players, add numbers 1, 2, 3...). The players much then set the rhythm of the game. This is a slap to the thighs, a clap of the hands and two clicks of the fingers. This should make a standard 4/4 time signature. Now the fun bit... Starting with the President, the game progresses with each player being ‘passed to’ by a previous player saying their new name, with speaking only taking place on the clicks. For example, ‘President, President’ (over the first set of clicks) ‘Treasurer, Treasurer’ (over the second clicks). The Treasurer would then pick this up and repeat the process with their name first and someone else’s second. This continues until someone gets it wrong. Then the game pauses and the person who messed up moves to the bottom of the chain. The idea is to get to be the President and stay there.
King of the Jungle King of the Jungle is also a ‘passing’ game but this time it involves making your best animal actions and sounds. This time, give each member of your group an animal character. Start with a lion, the lion is the King (or Queen) of the jungle and is always at the top of the chain in this game. You can then follow with any other animals you like. Just make sure that each animal has a sound and a movement. We then start, with the Lion performing their sound and movement and then someone else’s. Whoever is chosen then follows with their own, followed by someone else’s. This continues (and you want to try and make it fast so that it’s challenging) until someone messes up. The game pauses and that person moves to the bottom of the chain, moving everyone up a place if necessary. The idea is to move up to be the King yourself and stay there as long as possible. ‘ Keeper of the Keys This game is all about being sneaky and light on your feet. Pick one person to be the ‘Keeper’. This person needs to be blindfolded and sat down. They then need something precious to look after, we use keys because of the noise that they make when they are picked up but you could choose anything and perhaps even give them a few different things to take care of. Place the object/s close to the keeper, maybe under their chair or next to them. The rest of your group are now a team of international thieves! They must take it in turns to try and steal the objects from the keeper. The keeper can’t see them but they can hear them, so when they hear a noise, they will point in the direction it has come from. If they point at a thief, they have to go back to the start and give someone else a turn. Whoever gets the keys, becomes the keeper for the next round. A few tips: the rest of the players should stay as quiet as possible during each turn. As tempting as it might be to make a noise to try and distract attention from the thief, its up to them to make sure they are moving as quietly as possible.
The Peruvian Ball Game
This is a pairs game that seems really easy at first... Count to three in your pair with each person taking it in turns to say a number, keep rotating so that each person says a different number each time. See how fast you can manage to do it. Now replace the number 2 with a sound. You can both do the same sound or each person can do a different one, it’s up to you. Keep it going and try and be as fast as possible. Getting harder...? Now (keeping 2 as a sound) replace the number 3 with an action. Now no sound leaves your lips when it’s time for number 3, just an action happens. Keep trying to see how fast and smooth you can make your sequence. Finally, replace the number 1 with a sound and action that go together. Try and see how long you can keep that pattern going and how fast you can get it. Irish Duels This is also a pairs game and involves three different types of ‘duels’. Keep a track of who wins each duel and see who comes out on top. 1. The Sword Fight. Each player should place their left hand in the small of their back, with their palm facing out and hold their right hand with a pointy finger. Your finger is your sword and your object is to try and touch your opposition’s ‘power pack’ (hand) with your sword as many times as possible without letting them get yours. You should stay standing about a metre apart and try and keep count! 2. Knees, Knees, Knees. Return to standing one metre apart from your partner/ opponent. This time your left foot must remain glued to the floor, you can pivot on it but it cannot lift off the floor. Your challenge is to tap your partner behind the knee on their moving leg as many times as possible without letting them get you. Try and keep count. 3. Irish Dancing. The final duel is all about feet. Return to standing one metre away from your partner. This time your challenge is to tap your partner on the top of the foot with your toes as many times as possible without letting them get you. Both feet can move and you need to be VERY careful that you don’t get carried away and start stamping on your partner. Keep count of how many times you manage to touch your partner. At the end of the game, count up who won each round and see who was victorious overall.
Improvisation Games A lot of what we do in drama sessions is all about developing skills in improvisation, making up what you’re going to say on the spot. Here are some games that we use to help our groups improve those
You can listen to Mark from Met Express and Aiming High explaining this game Right Here
What are you doing? (v1) This is normally a circle game but can be played with a pair or a three. It’s a great game for quick thinking. Player number one will start a mime (acting without talking) of an action. Something really simple like brushing their hair.
Madeline from Aiming High will talk you through this game over here...
Player number two will approach them and ask them ‘What are you doing?’. Player one then must respond by saying absolutely anything APART FROM WHAT THEY ARE ACTUALLY DOING. Whatever the answer to the question is becomes an instruction to Player Two who will start to perform that action. After a few seconds, Player One will re-enter to ask ‘What are you doing?’ and the process will repeat.
What are you doing? (v2) This is a pairs game that helps you to develop your responsiveness and ability to develop ideas from a stimulus, something that is really important when you are improvising and using improvisation to create stories.
Change the Object In this game you need a few random objects from around your house. You can play this game with a pair, a bigger group, or even on your own. All your have to do is pass yout object around your group or between your pair and think of as many different things that this item could be that are not related to what it is in reality.
Player one starts off as an ‘artist’ and Player two as their piece of clay. Player one has ten seconds (you could use your phone to time this) to mould Player two into a shape. In this game it is not the artist’s job to worry about what their creation looks like, they should focus on making the shape look as interesting as possible. When the ten seconds is up, Player One steps away from their creation and asks it ‘What are you doing?’ It is then Player two’s job to think about the shape that they have been put into and answer the question. The players then swap over and Player two gets their chance to be the artist. The key to this game is for the creation to try and respond to the question quickly, relying on their first instinct. You can also extend the game by using the question and answer to start a short improvisation.
You could make a list of all the different uses you came up with or even draw your favourite at the end. Your item might even become a prop in a well known story! Park Bench/ Magic Bench This game can be played with two or three people and is all about responding to your fellow performers, accepting their ideas and being creative and imaginative. You will need two chairs next to each other or a sofa to play. Player one starts the game sat on the chairs and performs for a short while as if they are sat on a park bench, just enjoying a normal day. They are then joined by Player two. However, Player two cannot join until they have an idea for how they can transform the scene so that it no longer takes place on a park bench. It could be the flight deck of a space ship, a rollercoaster, the top of a giant’s beanstalk, absolutely anything you can imagine! Once Player two has decided on their new setting, they join Player one on the bench and proceed to change the scene through their performance, using dialogue and actions to communicate where the scene is now taking place and what might be happening (they should really try not to just say where they are). Player one should play along with whatever Player two is doing and, if they understand what the setting is, try and add to the story and help it progress. This is called ‘Accepting’ and ‘Advancing’ and means that they are taking on board the ideas of their partner and building upon those ideas to create a story. The story will inevitably start to dry up and when that happens, Player one should think of a creative excuse to leave the action. At this point a third Player can enter the scene or Player one simply re-enters, but they must now repeat the process of changing the scene. The game then continues with each player leaving and re-entering to change the scene as many times as you like.
Physical Theatre
Around, By, Through
Physical Theatre is a skill that we develop in drama to help create lots of different effects on stage. Sometimes whole performances or scenes use just physical theatre to tell a story but learning about it can also help us use our bodies better when we are playing characters in traditional plays.
This exercise comes from well-known theatre company Frantic Assembly and can be played in a pair. This game asks you to experiment with the way you move with a partner. Player one can stand still to begin with. Player two will start to move firstly Around their partner. They can interpret this however they want. They can then shift to moving By their partner, again, thinking about what that means to them and how they can vary the movement from what they have been doing previously. Finally they should move Through their partner, again, being creative in their interpretation of the word and trying to make the movements different from the previous two versions. After Player one has had a go then Player two can take over.
Mime Mime is simply a term for performing a character or scene without using words or sound, you have to rely on your body and face to communicate with your audience. Have a go at miming the following actions (all of these are verbs). pulling opening supporting lifting tearing throwing crumpling touching brushing away closing breaking taking giving separating Now try pick one of the actions above and try and add a ‘Quality’ to that action (these are adverbs). quietly tenderly painfully violently smoothly lovingly joyfully carefully coldly thoughtfully energetically angrily Keep switching up our actions and adding new qualities, you might even want to try mixing the qualities for each action. Get someone to watch and see if they can guess your action and quality combination.
Points on the Floor This game can be played in a pair, a small group or even on your own.
Tune into this link to hear Sue from Met Express talking you through Pass the Parcel and Body Parts on the Floor
The challenge here is for the player/s to respond to a random umber that is given to them by getting into a shape where only that number of body parts are in contact with the floor. You might want to take photos of your best and most challenging shapes.
Pass the Parcel Like the party game but with no actual presents, in this game you will pass an imaginary parcel between yourself and your partner/s. When you recieve the gift, you will open it and take out the present that is inside, starting to use it, play with it etc. It is your partners job to try and guess what was in the parcel just from the quality of your mime. You could make a lucky dip of some objects and take it in turns to pick one out to speed up the process of choosing what you will be acting out.
Devising Devising is the process that theatre makers go through to turn an empty space and page into a piece of new performance. They can try lots of different things to help them generate ideas including using games, finding stories to use and drawing on other items that
Devising Stimuli Stimuli is the word we use to describe something that you can use as a starting point for creating a new piece of drama, something that gives you an idea or that you base your whole piece around. Here are some ideas for where you can look for ideas: *Choose three objects from around your house, don’t think about what they are until you have them in front of you. Now think about what the connection might be between them and use this to create your story.
Fortunately, Unfortunately This is a really simple storytelling game that can be played with any number of people. Player one starts off the game with a sentence that starts off a story, keep it nice and simple like ‘Once upon a time there was a little girl who lived in a forest’. The next player then adds to the story but their sentence must begin with the word ‘fortunately...’. The next player who adds to the story should then begin their sentence with ‘unfortunately...’. This pattern then continues until the story comes to an end.
One word stories Similarly to Fortunately, Unfortunately, this game can be played with any number of people and ends in the creation of a new story. The catch here, however, is that each person is only allowed to contribute one single word to the story. This is a real test of listening skills and your memory for what has been added to the story. It is also great for testing how good you are at building sentences using the different parts of language.
*Research impressionist paintings online. The work of Monet, Renoir, Degas and others can be really great starting points. Choose a painting and try and list all the things that you see in it, then the emotions that it makes you feel or think of. That’s your story starting point. *Look at poetry. Research different poets online and choose one that you like the sound of (your parents can help you with this). Choose one of their poems and read it aloud. Then see if you can explain what the poem is all about in your own words. It might tell a story, be about a character or be describing an emotional response to something. Use that as your starting point. *Find a news story that you are interested in. A lot of drama is created from real life events, you might want to find a story about something that has really happened or is happening right now. Think about who might be involved in that story, you might need to create a new character or use ones that are already mentioned. Think about how you would tell that story visually on a stage.
You can watch The Professor share his challenge with you on this video
Professor Jigget's Storytelling Challenge Join Professor Jigget in this video and have a go at his special storyteling challenge. This exercise is all about using objects to create a story. The Professor will show you three objects and ask you to consider: -What it is? -Who did it belong to before? -How did it get here?
We really hope you have enjoyed the games in this resource. Hope you have a great time getting creative at home!
If you enjoyed getting creative with the ideas in this resource, you might want to consider joining one of our regular Workshop Groups. Bury Youth Theatre (9-13) Wednesdays 5.30-7pm Met Express (Learning Disabled adults) Mondays or Tuesdays 7-9pm Aiming High (9-13 Learning Disabilities/ Autism) Saturdays 10-11.30am Aiming High (14-19 Learning Disabilities/ Autism) Saturdays 11.13--1pm
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