Exercises & Warm-Ups That Don't Suck

[On_Headset]

I've got a summer contract, and it's a big'un: a ten-week youth intensive, with 50 students ranging in age from 15 to 25 and coming from very mixed artistic backgrounds. (Some theatre students, or even BFA graduates, some people who did high school theatre but didn't make anything of it, some singers, some dancers, some people of no particular expertise or experience...) Part of the job is going to involve team-teaching the early part of the program so that we aren't always working with gigantic groups of people. (So we might have 10 people working with the musical director on a vocal diagnostic to tease out the strong singers, 20 people working with the director on a general theatrical diagnostic, and 20 people working with myself and an assistant director on an improvisation diagnostic, then we'll swap them around. Casting will involve comparing notes.)

The bottom line is that I need some exercises, warm-ups and diagnostic activities which don't suck, and which will work with groups varying in size from 5 to 50. Do you have any you'd care to suggest?

I offer a few of my favourites in return:

HEY EVERYBODY -- silly but fast-paced improv, works best in a large group. (Certainly >20, >30 is ideal.) Very easy to quickly tease out which participants are "game" and which ones are more reluctant to jump in.

Somebody shouts "HEY, EVERYBODY! LET'S __________!"
The group replies "YEAH! LET'S _____________!", and begins acting out the proposed action. ("Hey everybody, let's disco dance!" "Hey everybody, let's ride this rollercoaster!" "Hey everybody, let's have a tea party!" "Hey everybody, let's go to the muscle beach!")

The group continues performing the action until the next person shouts "HEY EVERYBODY!", and keep going from there. The fun really kicks in when you get chains of actions going. ("Hey everybody! Let's swim!" "Hey everybody! Let's drown!" "Hey everybody! Let's swim with sharks!" "Hey everybody! Let's get eaten by crocodiles!")


Silent Samurai -- more silly improv, although with more of a point to it. A lot of fun for the hams in the group.

Players pretend that their hands are four-foot samurai swords. In slow motion and in perfect silence, they stalk around the room until their eyes meet those of another player--then they must battle! Still in slow motion and silently, they swing their swords and attack each other, thrusting and parrying until one of them finally gets stabbed, when the loser must (still in slow motion) perform a loud, gruesome death scene as they collapse to the ground. The winner begins stalking their next victim...


High School -- more character-focused, but also an observational exercise.

Ask players to pick a high school clique/archetype. (Jock, cheerleader, goth, nerd, etc.) Have them walk around the room interacting with each other--without using any words. Encourage them to "find their clique": the jocks should try and find one another, the goths should stand sullenly in a corner, etc.


High School II -- difficult to classify, actually somewhat uncomfortable. Character and improv.

Players move through open space. Gradually apply conditions to them, i.e:
- "You have a crush on someone. Pick anyone in the room and follow them around--but don't get too close, or else they'll figure it out!"
- "You have a vendetta against someone. Pick someone in the room and avoid them. Try never to see them. Whenever they approach you, turn the other way and walk off."
- "It's the first day of school! Wave and say "hi" to everyone you meet! But don't forget who your crush and enemy are..."
- etc. etc. etc. ("You're an outsider. Nobody understands you." "You won the homecoming game! Aren't you awesome?! Make sure everybody you meet knows it!")

[little_owl]

Have them do some yoga exercises.

And we are also doing this thing where you talk in gibberish and try to do something in particular with one or two people. Like trying to convince them to do something or having one person interpret for two people as though you can speak English but the other two do the gibberish thing.

And other movements you could do could be moving around the room with a sense of floating. And doing everyday things but with a sense of floating. Or doing everyday things but with your hands molding the atmosphere.   

[kiwitechgirl]

My last cast loved a warmup called "Big Booty" which was good for focus and energy.  Everyone stands in a circle, and one person is nominated as "Big Booty".  Everyone else numbers off from them round in a clockwise direction.  Then everyone stamps or claps to get a beat going (you can go as slow or as fast as you like - my guys used to speed up as we got into it) and then calls in rhythm and unison "Big Booty, Big Booty, Big Booty, oh yeah."  Then the person who is Big Booty says, staying in rhythm, "Big Booty, number ##".  The person who has that number has to say "number ## (their number), number ## (another person's number)" and so on and so on.  Anyone who loses the rhythm or just doesn't reply when their number is called becomes the last in the circle (moves to Big Booty's right) and everyone else has to renumber on the fly.  The idea, of course, is to try and make the person who is Big Booty lose their spot.

[thomasfedb]

As far as singing warmups the last MD I worked with loved:

Getting everybody to sing "May-oyay-oyay-oyay-oyay-naise" with the pitch decreasing and increasing. It was a nice silly thing that everybody got into.

There's also some great adaptations of common nursery rhymes that go down a treat.

[Thespi620]

I learned a new one a few weeks ago called Typewriter that struck me as clever and a really fun game when it goes well.

Best for groups of about 13 to 25/26.

Players sit in a circle on the floor, hands in the center. Go around the circle and assign each letter of the alphabet to the players--start with A and continue clockwise around the circle until you reach Z, as many circles as it takes. (This is where groups of less than 13 get tricky, too many letters per person gets difficult. With larger groups, consider including punctuation marks and capitalization). Then, pick a phrase. Start off really simple, like "I am cold." The idea of the game is that the group is a typewriter. Each hand in the circle is a key on the typewriter. The object is to type the phrase without speaking. To start a phrase, the whole typewriter taps their hands twice on the ground. Then, each letter is tapped by its player, with another double tap (spacebar) in between each word and at the end of each sentence. Try to get as fast and accurate as possible, and get creative with your phrase choice--sometimes a line from the show, other times a famous quotation, etc.

[LCSM]

I second Big Booty.

Another group-chant game I that like is Show Us How You Get Down:

Players stand in a circle and establish a rhythm through clapping or tapping their thighs. Player One begins the game by engaging Player Two in the following exchange:

ONE: Hey Player Two!
TWO: Hey what?
ALL: Hey Player Two!
TWO: Hey what?
ONE: Show us how you get down.
TWO: No way.
ALL: Show us how you get down.
TWO: Okay.
ALL: D-O-W-N, that's the way we get down. (x2)

On the first D-O-W-N... Player Two shows off a dance move for the whole group. On the second D-O-W-N... the entire group performs Player Two's dance move. Then the chant begins again, with Player Two calling on Player Three, etc.

[clurston]

A couple of good vocal ones are;

"Saturday matinee Saturday matinee Saturday matinee Saturday matinee Saturday matinee Saaatttt..." going down the scale,

"I'd like aaaa" (on whatever your starting note is) then "gin and tonic, gin and tonic...." etc up or down the scale. If they need a laugh, or it's just one of those days, "gin and tonic" can be replaced with "F**king coffee" or the less fun "flipping coffee".

Or (better in a large-ish group)

Have everyone sitting on a chair and sing "The Grand Old Duke of York" once through. Sing it a second time and have everyone stand up on "up" and sit down on "down". Sing it through a third time and have everyone sit down on "up" and stand up on "down". Split the group into two (boys and girls, etc) and have one group sit on the "up"s and the other sit on the "down"s etc (make sure you swap so they both get 'a turn at the easy one'!... then feel free to speed up as appropriate. Enjoy!

[Jlong]

I second Big Booty.

Another group-chant game I that like is Show Us How You Get Down:

Players stand in a circle and establish a rhythm through clapping or tapping their thighs. Player One begins the game by engaging Player Two in the following exchange:

ONE: Hey Player Two!
TWO: Hey what?
ALL: Hey Player Two!
TWO: Hey what?
ONE: Show us how you get down.
TWO: No way.
ALL: Show us how you get down.
TWO: Okay.
ALL: D-O-W-N, that's the way we get down. (x2)

On the first D-O-W-N... Player Two shows off a dance move for the whole group. On the second D-O-W-N... the entire group performs Player Two's dance move. Then the chant begins again, with Player Two calling on Player Three, etc.

I use this one a lot as well except

ONE: Hey (Insert Name)!
TWO: Hey what?
ALL: Hey (Insert Name)!
TWO: Hey what?
ONE: Show us how you get up.
TWO: No way.
ALL: Show us how you get down.
TWO: Okay.
ALL: D-O-W-N, that's the way we get down. (x2)

Then whoever did the dance move asks the next person. I stopped doing this one when it got out of hand during a sound of music production. The captain decided to show us how he got down, by whipping his junk back and forth through his fly... with the Von Trapp kids in the room. *Unhappy SM Face*

[nick_tochelli]

Here's a few more to add to your warm up list:

The Machine
Someone starts off with a repetitive motion and one by one the group adds onto that motion and creates a machine. No sounds, just movements.

3 Line Scenes
Quickly establish a place, a relationship and a conflict in three lines.

Freeze Tag
The improv variety, not the school yard variety. Start an improv scene and anyone can call freeze and tag someone out and start a new scene from the same positions they were just frozen in.

Yes And
This is a fantastic game for building stories while never denying anything. Start a story standing in a circle, and when it's time to pass the story on, the storyteller looks to their right and that person accepts what they just heard by saying "Yes and" and building off that previous person's story. They aren't allowed to change things they heard, they can only build and add to it.

Half Life
Perform a 60 second Open Scene with 2 or 3 students. Stop them, then they have to perform the same scene in 30 seconds (catching the major points). Then perform the same scene in 15 seconds, and in 7.5 seconds. If you feel like there's an awesome catchphrase to be had, they can perform a 3 second scene after that.

I got a whole bunch of other ones from my improv/YMCA camp counselor days if you want more suggestions.

[Calie.Davis]

The Siege of Belgrade

A fun vocal exercise, from my perspective I see that it not only helps with diction and projecting but it helps the cast and crew get rid of nervous emotions.

You would say one line they repeat it, then you would go on with the the next line and they would repeat that line etc etc etc.

An Austrian army, awfully arrayed,
Boldly by battery beseiged Belgrade;
Cossack commanders cannonading come,
Dealing destruction’s devastating doom;
Every endeavour engineers essay
For fame, for fortune, forming furious fray

Keep in mind if you use a loud projected voice or a silly voice the students might get into it more and copy your voice.
For some odd reason the person who leads the exercise says the exercise in a ridiculous british accent and it makes it very silly and exciting.

[SM_Maddie]

I haven't read what the other users have submitted for the most part, so forgive me for any repeats. 

I find that energy warm ups are pretty easy to come by, and there are a million of them out there, so I'll focus more on focus warm ups. My director always has the actors start off any warm up with a extensive yoga sun salutation, stretching everyone out and getting us to focus on our breathing.  Then we do the "horse" which is more painful than anything, but really gets us in the hardworking mindset. We all squat down, as if riding an invisible saddle, and hold our arms out in front of us as if holding reigns. When we start feeling tired, we breathe out slowly and pull in the invisible reigns with our hands. A tactic that works wonders for reasons that I will never understand.

Sometimes we'll sit in a circle and close our eyes, and then we'll have to call out the abc's without anyone calling out at the same time. This really makes people listen for each other and "feel" the cast. Then we'll do a character warm up, where the actors will all move about the space, responding to individual environments. Then they'll incorporate their needs and tactics into the environment, and then will start interacting with the other people around them.

I don't know if that is what you were looking for, but there it is. I know that this one might be considered lame, but the hug game has always been a favorite among myself and my peers. As teenagers, we're pretty easy to please.