Demonstrate to your students that they already know a lot about acting. Ask two students to come up front and have them role-play a small child asking their parent for a toy they desperately want. Follow up the demonstration by asking the class to explain how the student actors knew what to do and say. Lead them to the conclusion that actors observe and recreate behaviors that happen in everyday life.

Show the TV program  - Born at the Rise of the Curtain, Die at its Fall: Actor 

 

Set up a chair in the front of the room and have two students improvise each of the following scenes.

1. Move
Student A: Your job is to get the other person out of the chair
Student B: Your job is to stay in the chair

2. Sales
Student A: Sell the chair
Student B: You want to buy a table

3. Art
Student A: The chair is your artistic creation
Student B: You’re an art critic

4. Sculpture
Student A: Why you like this sculpture?
Student B: Why you don’t like this sculpture?

5. Sore feet
Student A: You’ve been standing for hours and there’s only one chair
Student B: You’ve been standing for hours and there’s only one chair

6. Remember
Student A: The chair brings back memories of your grandparents
Student B: The chair brings back memories of your grandparents

7. Get rid of the chair
Student A: You want to throw the chair out
Student B: You want to keep the chair

8. Garage sale
Student A: You think the chair may be worth a lot of money. (buyer)
Student B: Maybe they want this chair a little too much? (seller)

9. Secret Service
Student A: As an agent of the Secret Service it’s your job to check out the chair before the president sits in it.
Student B: You’re the president’s host. It’s your chair.

10. That’s absurd! - Action reaction
Student A: To every thing you do or say involving the chair the other person responds with an absurd reaction.
Student B: To every thing you do or say involving the chair the other person responds with an absurd reaction.

Do You Like Me?
Activity adapted from an exercise in: Theater: Preparation and Performance. Charlotte Lee and David Grote, Glenview, Illinois: Scott, Foresman and Company, page 132, 1982.

Pair up students and have them memorize the following lines.

A. Do you like me?
B. What kind of question is that?

A. Well, do you?
B. Why would you ask a question like that?

A. Why won’t you answer me?
B. Well, if it means that much to you.

A. Yes, it does.
B. Well of course I do.

A. Good.
B. Yes, I suppose it is.

Once they have the lines memorized, have them play the parts as different characters:
1. Parent and small child
2. Teenage boy and teenage girl
3. Brother and sister
4. Switch the roles to see how differently it plays out
5. Characters created by the students

Now have your students do the same scene but add a context that they must convey:
1. On the telephone
2. Feeling affection
3. In the middle of an argument
4. After an argument
5. Saying goodbye before a long absence
6. Trying to reassure one another
7. A context created by the students

Now let them pick the character and context and have them add movement to the scene:
1. While shopping
2. Running to catch a plane
3. Waiting in the cold for the bus
4. Outside the principals office
5. On a walk in the woods
6. On a roller coaster
7. Have students make up a reason for movement

 

Have your students memorize the following scene and come up with their own characters, context and movements.

A. (A greeting ? your choice)
B. (A greeting ? your choice)

A. What’s happening?
B. Not much.

A. Anything interesting going on?
B. Not much.

A. Later.
B. Yeah.