Acting Games

Whether you’re a drama teacher, director, or running a course, acting games are fantastic tools. They help actors get comfortable in an ensemble, warmed up and focused on the task at hand. Acting games also develop important foundational skills required for performance.

This article contains a list of the best drama and acting games. For each game or exercise we have given a difficulty rating, a recommended age range and a set of learning outcomes to tell what kind of skills the game will help improve. For added convenience, we’ve split the games into six sections to make it easier for you to find the appropriate games for your group/situation.

Updated 18th November, 2024.

For Getting to Know a New Group
Focus Games
Improvisation Games
Physical Exercises
Super Fun Games
Simple Goodies
Some Practical Tips

For Getting to Know a New Group

It can be extremely helpful to have a group of games up your sleeve to act as an ice-breaker for new groups. They encourage team-building, they allow ensemble/classes to relax and to start taking risks in front of each other.

Moving Name

Difficulty: Easy
Age Range: All ages
Learning Outcomes: Confidence, vocal projection, movement work.

This, in our opinion, is the best game to start with when working in a new group.

1. Form a circle.
2. Say your name with a matching gesture for each syllable, and a distinct vocalisation. Ruben, for instance, could be signalled with two punches (“Ru!” “Ben!”) and spoken in a high pitched voice.
3. Once you have performed your name, the whole group mimics you. They must try to copy the way you said your name as well as the physical movement.
4. Continue this around the circle until each person has said their name. If it’s a smaller group, you can start back at the beginning with the first person each time, so as to really solidify who is who.

Tip: The more whacky you set the standard, the better result you’ll get from participants.

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Name and Go

Difficulty: Easy
Age Range: 8 and above
Learning Outcomes: Concentration, listening, ensemble work.

It’s best to play this game after Moving Name. Hopefully, participants have learnt at least a few names by this point; Name and Go can help solidify this further.

1. Form a circle.
2. The first person makes eye contact with somebody in the circle, says their name and moves to take their place.
3. The person they spoke to must pick another person in the circle, say their name and continue the pattern.

Tip: Encourage participants to relax and focus. If they get flustered and panic it disrupts the flow of the game. Participants also have to communicate with the people they’re naming: it doesn’t work if they call out a name and barrel towards them, they have to ensure their chosen person has heard them and understands it’s now their turn.

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Zombie Tag

Difficulty: Medium
Age Range: 7 and above
Learning Outcomes: Coordination, teamwork, movement, concentration.

This is a popular warm-up game, even for people who know each other’s names and have worked together before! For new groups, Zombie Tag is a great way of incentivising the learning of names: if you want to survive, you better know who everybody is!

1. Have participants walk randomly around the space—evenly spreading themselves across the room. To begin, name a person who will be the first zombie. They have to pick one person in the space to walk towards (making zombie sounds and lurching forward in an undead fashion), and try to tap them on the shoulder.
2. To escape, the chosen victim must yell out another name in the room. That new person becomes the zombie and picks another victim, and the game continues on from there.
3. If a participant is tapped, they become the next zombie. After another name is said, they wait on the sidelines.

Tip: With smaller groups, you might want to restrict the playing space. One way to do this is have participants who get out become “The Wall”: they stand at the edge of the space and can tap people out who get too close!

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Focus Games

Focus games help calibrate and settle a room at the start of a session, or after a break. Seasoned directors and drama teachers alike understand that focus games may cost a little time to set up and run, but pay dividends in the long-term as an ensemble finds their rhythm and readies themselves for more in-depth work.

Me to You

Difficulty: Easy
Age Range: All ages
Learning Outcomes: Concentration, team-building.

This is a really simple exercise for a large group which encourages connection and focus. It is a natural exercise to build to after Name and Go.

1. Form a circle.
2. The person starting must make eye contact with someone else (working across the circle is best.)
3. They then gesture to themselves and say “me” followed by a gesture at the other person, to which they say: “you”. It should be seamless.
4. If you are targeted, you then accept the offer and continue in the same way to a new person in the circle.
5. Once this has gone around the circle a few times, lose the words and get participants to simply use gesture and eye contact.
6. If they are successful at this then drop the gesture and simply use eye contact.

Tip: As an extension, you can use this to model how actions are used to achieve objectives! Give students a verb to perform their “Me, you.” line with, and have them enact this upon the other person. “This time, try to bargain.”

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Word Association with Clicks

Difficulty: Medium
Age Range: Ages 13+
Learning Outcomes: Focus, quick thinking, teamwork, rhythm.

This game is played by professional theatre companies, but can also work well with late primary and high school kids.

1. Form a circle.
2. Firstly, teach participants a rhythm they will make with body percussion: thigh slap, clap, then click (right hand), click (left hand) Repeat this until everybody is comfortable with it.
3. One person will begin by saying a word on the final click (left hand.)
4. The next person says this word during their right click, and then a word that comes to mind with their left hand click. The pattern should thus be: thigh slap, clap, previous word with right click, new word with left click.
5. Continue this until you have done a few successful laps around the circle.

Tip: Stress the importance of keeping the rhythm steady: groups tend to panic, and therefore speed up to compensate.

Tip: If the rhythm is too confusing, try a simple game of word association around the circle instead.

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Bang!

Difficulty: Medium
Age Range: 8+
Learning Outcomes: Concentration, movement, vocal projection.

A warm-up classic! This game is popular with all ages, but you may wish to choose a word other than “bang” if you’re uncomfortable with younger students pretending to shoot guns. (However, they tend to realise it’s only a game.)

1. Form a circle with a ‘sheriff’ in the centre. For the first round, this should be the facilitator. After that, it’s the winner of the subsequent round.
2. Point to a person and say “bang”! When you do, that person has to duck, and the people on either side of them have to fire at each other with both hands clasped together. The slowest to react sits down for the rest of the round.
3. Continue until only two remain standing. They go into the centre of the room, back to back, and walk away from each other.
4. Have one person pick a “magic word” and another tell a story containing the magic word. When the two finalists hear the word in the story, they can turn and shoot.
5. Your winner is  the new sheriff. 

Tip: Shooting out of turn (“without a license”) usually results in an automatic disqualification: this discourages people yelling out to save themselves without really listening.

Tip: It’s worth mentioning to younger students that “Bang!” is a game of concentration far more than one of being quick. More students will get themselves out not listening or reacting than they will actually being slow.

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Improvisation Games

Improvisation is an important skill to learn for any actor, and can take a lifetime to truly master. Improvisation acting games foster experimentation, and enable actors to work in a rehearsal or learning space with a sense of fun and safety.

“Thank You!”

Difficulty: Easy
Age Range: All ages
Learning Outcomes: Movement, visual storytelling, confidence, writing.

This games works as a great warm-up for more extensive improvisations.

1.  Form a circle.
2. Invite one person to walk into the circle and form a frozen image with their body.
3. A second person then joins them, creating a complimentary pose that builds on the first.
4. The first person breaks their pose, says “Thank you.” and exits the circle. 
5.  Another enters and builds on the second person’s pose, continuing the exercise.
6.  For older or more advanced participants: when a person comes into the circle, have them say the first line of a scene. This can be extended into a short improv scene if they feel comfortable.

Tip: This can be a great exercise for talking about improv basics with younger students: talk about status (not walking into the space with more power than the first student). If you add the ‘first line’ step, tell students to consider people/places/things so the audience knows what’s going on. Discourage generic lines such as “What’s going on?!”

Tip: Prompt participants to interpret a pose in an unexpected way: could a karate chop be a handshake?

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“What are you doing?”

Difficulty: Easy
Age Range: All ages
Learning Outcomes: Improvisation, movement, visual storytelling, mime

This game is another simple introduction to improv basics, and acts as an excellent ice-breaker for new groups.

1. Form a circle.
2. Invite a person into the centre and have them act out a situation, scenario or task. Unlike “Thank You!”, encourage them to talk and narrate their experience as much as possible.
3. Call a freeze. Then invite a second person into the circle to ask them: “What are you doing?”
4. The first person then replies with anything but their current activity, and the second person has to act it out.
5. Repeat until all have had a go.

Tip: This is a game that thrives on imagination and silliness. Wilder offers by the second participant can make for a much more exciting round: don’t just say “I’m fishing.”, go with “I’m fishing for sharks that keep trying to sing show-tunes.” Such silliness is a terrific icebreaker—and an equaliser for new groups still developing the confidence to look ridiculous in front of one another.

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Frozen Circle

Difficulty: Medium
Age Range: All ages
Learning Outcomes: Vocal projection, movement, confidence, storytelling.

This is a great improvisation game. It is similar to the well known “Space Jump”, but a little easier to explain.

1. Form a circle.
2. A person enters the circle and begins a solo improvisation. Get the group to help come up with a scenario.
3. Then say freeze at an appropriate moment.
4. Some else from the group gets into the circle and starts a new improvisation, inspired by the other person’s frozen pose.
5. Let the scene run for around 30 seconds, then say freeze when the physical shape is something interesting or unexpected.
6. A new person from the group then goes into the circle, tagging out the person who has been in the longest. They take up the exact same position of the person they’ve subbed in for and start a totally new scene.

Tip: Encourage participants to be creative and not just to aim at cheap/easy comedy. There is no reason why improvisation can’t be serious—even moving. A no guns/violence/death rule is often helpful.

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Space Jump

Difficulty: Medium
Age Range: All ages (8+ recommended)
Learning Outcomes: Acting, movement, vocal projection, team-building, focus.

This is arguably the most famous of all improvisation games, and is played with slightly different variations all over the world.

1. Set out a ‘stage’ space in the room: this could be an actual stage, or simply the centre of a circle in a larger group.
2. Select a person to begin the game by acting out a scene on their own. (They can offer their own prompt, or be given one by the group.)
3. After some time has elapsed, call Space Jump! and have them freeze.
4. A second person enters and changes the scene radically. Whatever they dictate, the first must “yes, and” and act out the new scenario.
5. Continue until all in the group are part of the action.
6. Depending on the size of the group, have participants leave the scene in reverse order, flicking back through the previous scenes until the original person is all who remains.

Tip: Try to encourage a diverse range of scenarios; it can also help to offer a theme for each round: hobbies and sports, celebrations, famous movie monsters.

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“Why are you late?”

Difficulty: Medium
Age Range: 10+
Learning Outcomes: Acting, physicality, vocal projection, team-building, focus.

This game requires a bit of set-up and explanation, but is a fun improv exercise that is both entertaining to participate in and watch for larger groups.

1. Pick four characters from the group: Big Boss, 2 x Co-workers and the Driver.
2. Set the scene: The Co-workers and the Driver are late for work. The Big Boss (seated onstage) is waiting for them to show up.
3. The 2 x Co-workers come onstage while the Driver parks the car (where they can neither hear nor see what’s going on.)
4. Big Boss asks “Why are you late?” The Co-workers come up with three reasons that they were delayed: the more ridiculous the better!
5. Finally, the driver comes back into the room. Big Boss asks the same question and the two Co-workers have to mime out their reason behind Big Boss’ back. If the Driver gets the reasons correct, they keep their jobs. If not, everybody is fired and a new round begins.

Tip: Make sure you encourage those in the audience to be friendly and engaged. Model laughter, applause and cheers at appropriate times.

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Advanced Improv Games

Once you have played a few basic games, you might want to up the difficulty level with your group and explore some longer form improvisational games. These are best played with ages fifteen years and up, beginner adult groups or experienced actors looking to work their craft in a different way.

Death in a Minute

Difficulty: Medium
Ages: 15+
Learning Outcomes: Acting, writing, team-building, characterisation.

This is a game you can play with younger groups, but it often gets too silly, too quickly. Gauge how your participants are tracking in terms of their ability to craft characters and a scene, and this may be a fun, challenging game to play with them.

1. Start by giving participants some prompts as to the world of the scene, and their characters. “This scene takes place at the buffet on a cruise ship. There is a Captain, Chef, Waiter and Passenger.”
2. Inform this new cast that they are about to play out a short, one-minute scene in which one of the people will unexpectedly die. Award (metaphorical) points for an unexpected cause of death that keeps the audience guessing.
3. Time the scene out, offering time prompts as needed. While the name of the game is “Death in a Minute”, it usually takes more time than that—if the scene is building somewhere, let it do so.
4. When the scene has run its course, prompt its finish by yelling out: “Find an ending!”

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Four Lines and a Story

Difficulty: Medium
Ages: 15+
Learning Outcomes: Acting, writing, team-building, characterisation.

This game is all about creating a scene using minimal dialogue. Write these four phases on a whiteboard or an easily accessible surface that the performers can see.

1. “What do you mean?”
2. “I love you.”
3. “You can’t be serious.”
4. “I’m sorry.”

Pick two people to get up onstage; they must create a scene and tell a story using only these phases as dialog. Get suggestions from the audience about their characters’ relationship, environment and what happened last time they saw each other. Encourage them to really focus on telling the story with their vocal and physical choices within the limits of the specified dialog above.

Tip: As an extension, try having participants act out short A/B scenes, working to determine the given circumstances and character objectives within each interaction.

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People, Places, Secrets

Difficulty: Challenging
Ages: 15+
Learning Outcomes: Acting, writing, characterisation.

Once a group has a grasp of the above exercise, the next step is to raise the stakes while offering the performers a degree of freedom. They are no longer required to stick to the 4x lines.

1. Select two actors and have them stand on the ‘stage’.
2. Ask an audience for the following: “Where is this scene taking place?” “What is the relationship between these two performers?” “What happened last time they saw each other?”
3. With these facts established, select one performer and give them a secret. Encourage them to reveal their secret at an appropriate time in the scene.

Tip: Ensure that the secrets and scenes you assign to your group are appropriate for their age range and maturity level.

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Free-form Improv

Difficulty: Hard
Ages: 15+
Learning Outcomes: Acting, writing, characterisation.

Once you have played out both of the above scenarios, the group will be well acquainted with the setup, now we can let them roam free in the storytelling wilderness and see what they come up with. Put two people onstage: give them one minute to set up a relationship, an environment and a recent history. Send one of them out of the room and tell them to come up with a relevant secret. Tell the other actor onstage to come up with a secret as well, and watch the scene unfold with a double reveal to everyone’s surprise!

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Physical Exercises

Actors of any age tend to forget physical training and exercises when they begin to work with scripts. This limits the ability for actors to bring engaging physicality to their characters, or properly navigate space or stage directions. Physical exercises should be an important part of any artistic or educational work.

Frozen Image

Difficulty: Easy
Age Range: All ages
Learning Outcomes: Movement, teamwork, storytelling.

This game works well with all ages. It encourages creativity and physical expression.

 

1. Split your group up into three. It doesn’t matter the size of each group.
2. Instruct each group to come up with three poses or “statues” which portray a story.
3. The three poses should represent a beginning, middle and end of a story.
4. Give each group around 5 minutes to prepare.
5. Get the class to reform and let each group perform.
6. Then get the rest of the class to explain what the story was about.

Tip: This isn’t a game where groups ‘win’ by correctly guessing the story. It’s as much about clear storytelling as it is discovering new ideas and perspectives. Sometimes the perceived story is better, which is something the performing group should be proud of!

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Four Corners

Difficulty: Easy
Age Range: All ages
Learning Outcomes: Movement, listening, concentration.

This is an easy physical game for all ages. It’s perfect for the start of a class or session, as it gets people moving with minimal rules to be explained.

1. Name or number the four corners of the room.
2. Choose a participant to stand in the middle of the room. You then make them close their eyes while you count down from 10. They can either spin on the spot and stop when you reach zero, or they can stay still and then pick a corner on zero.
3. The rest of the group must pick one of the four corners to ‘hide’ in. Encourage them to do so tactically and quietly so that they do not draw attention to themselves.
4. The person in the centre selects a corner, and the people in that corner are out.
5. The game continues until there is a winner, who becomes the new person in the centre.

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Changing Character

Difficulty: Easy
Age Range: All ages
Learning Outcomes: Acting, movement, characterisation.

This is often a great way to get a session going like a class, or even a theatre development workshop. It encourages zero-stakes creativity.

1. Have participants walk around the space.
2. If your session has a particular theme or focus, choose an appropriate character and have participants walk in that manner: King, Coward, Bully, Fool, Secret Android, Etc.
3. In between each character, have them return to their ‘neutral’ state.
4. As an extension, you can allow some limited interactivity between characters. Start by having each person come up with a simple greeting for the character.

Tip: You can also do this exercise with animals, laying the ground for more focused animal work.

Tip: Act with the group as you call the characters. Don’t ever be above looking foolish!

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Opposites Game

Difficulty: Easy
Age Range: All ages
Learning Outcomes: Concentration, body awareness.

This game builds on the classic ‘walk the space’ exercise, which could honestly be the foundation of any class or creative session with actors.

1. Have participants walk around the space, placing themselves evenly across the room, avoiding patterns and circles.
2.  Ask them all to jump when you yell “Jump!” When they are comfortable with this, add “Crouch!” Finally, add two sounds: a “Shush!” has them all shush, and a “Hello!” elicits a loud “Hi there!” 
3.  Alternate between the commands to warm them up and get them used to performing the actions.
4.  Call a stop. Tell the group that jump is crouch, crouch is jump, shush is “Hi there!” and “Hello!” is shush.
5. Now freely change between all the options, trying to catch them out.

Tip: You can try adding extra actions to the game to increase the difficulty. Just make sure they are paired so you can maintain the swap.

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Heroes And Villains

Difficulty: Medium
Age Range: All ages
Learning Outcomes: Concentration, movement, team work, acting.

Another fun variation of the many ‘walk  around the space’ games. This one brings a subtle edge that is sure to challenge any age group/proficiency level.

1. Have participants walk around the space while avoiding friends, patterns and circles.
2. When they are comfortable, have them select one person in the room: they should not indicate to this person that they have chosen them in any way.
3. When they’ve picked this person, tell them this is their “villain”. Without drawing attention to it, they need to do all they can to keep this person far away from them.
4. Next, have them pick a second person: this person is their “hero”. This person should make them feel calm and happy. Again, this person should not know they’ve been chosen.
5. Finally, task participants with keeping their hero between them and the villain. Challenge them to keep up the charade as long as they can (the group will eventually tangle hopelessly.)

Tip: For younger groups, this is a great game for teaching about emotions and empathy: how do they feel about the hero and the villain? Why might they want to keep them away?

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Guess the Word

Difficulty: Easy
Age Range: All ages
Learning Outcomes: Movement, teamwork, concentration.

This game gets participants using their bodies and increases observation skills.

1. Split the group in half. If you have an uneven number, you may have to take part. 
2. Once everyone has lined up get them to pick a partner.
3. Gather one half in and give them a word. It is best to use emotions for example, passion, love, anxiety.
4. The goal is for the students to express that word to their partners simply using their bodies for expression.
5. Try to keep the two groups in two lines opposite each other so people aren’t running into each other.
6. The listening group then has to guess the word.
7. Go through each person in the listening group and see if they have got it right.
8. Change groups and repeat using a new word.

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Super Fun Games

Finally, we have a collection of games that are, essentially, just fun. This isn’t to say they’re a waste of time in a rehearsal room or drama class—they actually tend to model and strengthen skills better, as participants are less focused on improving themselves than they are having a good time.

Stuck in the Mud

Difficulty: Easy
Age Range: All ages
Learning Outcomes: Movement, concentration, teamwork.

This is a quite a well known game that isn’t necessarily related to acting; however, it is a lot of fun and gets participants moving and enjoying themselves.

1. Choose one person to be the “tagger”. If you have a large group (20+), you can start with two or three people.
2. Participants must then evade the “tagger”. If tagged, they must say still and outstretch legs and arms like a star jump.
3. The goal is for the taggers to have the whole group stationary (stuck in the mud). Those who are not taggers can free the others who are stuck by going under their legs.

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Build the Robot

Difficulty: Easy
Age Range: All ages
Learning Outcomes: Movement, teamwork, creativity.

Also known as “Construction Line” or “Fantastic Machine”, this is an easy game that encourages teamwork and creativity.

1. One person from the group begins on stage and makes a repetitive gesture and matching sound: it should look like the. movement of a robot on a factory construction line.
2. A second person joins them, and adds to the scene by contributing their own movement and sound.
3. Continue until all participants are involved, performing their individual movement and sound.

Tip: As an extension, have one participant ‘control’ the robot by conducting the action with their hands: bringing their hands up or down controls speed, bringing them apart or closer together controls volume. It’s always fun to add a ‘big red button’ (with its own sound effect) so they can start or stop the robot immediately.

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Expert Double Figures

Difficulty: Easy
Age Range: Late primary/early high school.
Learning Outcomes: Improvisation, character, movement, teamwork.

A fun, sillye performance game.

1. Choose four participants to take part: two must sit on stage in chairs with their hands behind their backs, and the other two slip their arms through the seated participants’ arms to play their ‘hands’.
2. You then name an interviewer and interviewee. The interviewee must be an ‘expert’ in a particular field (either of your own choosing or via the group.
3. Let the interview begin: the participants in the chairs must improv their way through the scene, while their ‘hands’ should gesticulate according to the words and emotions of their ‘bodies’.

Tip: Encourage the ‘hands’ to not be too over the top: they’re always a humorous element, but they shouldn’t overpower the words being spoken or the characters the ‘bodies’ create.

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Epic Scissors-Paper-Rock

Difficulty: Easy
Age Range: Primary/early high school
Learning Outcomes: Movement, teamwork.

This game is a lot of chaotic fun, and is the perfect way to end a rehearsal or break up a class.

1. Split the group in half and get each group to pick a name for their fantasy warband: Blazing Dragons, Crimson Axes, Tenacious Dachshunds, etc.
2. The game works in the same way as Scissors-Paper-Rock; however, it utilises Giants, Wizards, Goblins. Giants stomp on Wizards, Wizards shoot Goblins, Goblins trip Giants.
3. Teach the participants an action and catchphrase for each character. Instruct them that they, as a group, have to secretly select one character for their entire warband to play each round.
4. When they have chosen, have the warbands face each other in the centre of the room and count down from three. At “One!”, the warbands perform their character.
5. The winning team then has to ‘tag’ the losing team as they run back to the safety of their end of the room.
6. Play until one warband assimilates the other.

Tip: Instruct participants about the importance of listening and paying attention in this game. As a rule, you shouldn’t announce a winner of each ‘battle’, instead let participants work it out themselves.

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Simple Goodies

Telephone

Difficulty: Easy
Age Range: All ages
Learning Outcomes: Teamwork, listening.

Everyone knows this game, but it is fantastic and really useful—especially with younger children. It encourages good diction and listening skills.

1. Get your group into a circle, either seated or standing.
2. Start by whispering a short sentence into the ear of the person next to you.
3. Let the sentence travel around the circle in this same manner and see if it comes back to you the same as it started.
4. The goal is to get it back intact, but it can provide some great fun when it goes horribly wrong.

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1-2-3

Difficulty: Easy
Age Range: Primary
Learning Outcomes: Vocal projection, improvisation, teamwork, movement.

An easy game that can help relax younger students, or provide some much needed silliness for established actors..

1. Get your group into a circle.
2. Walk around the circle and number off people 1,2 or 3.
3. Then simply come up with fun things for the groups to act. For example: “1’s are wild animals, 2’s are zoo keepers and 3’s are tourists at the zoo.” etc.
4. Continue until each number has had a few goes.

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Greetings Your Majesty

Difficulty: Easy
Age Range: All Ages (primary ideal)
Learning Outcomes: Acting, vocal projection.

A really simple game to burn some time at the end of an acting class.

1. Get participants to sit in a line.
2. Place a chair facing away from the group.
3. One person is placed in the chair and instructed to close their eyes.
4. People are then picked from the line to sneak up behind the chair and, in a weird or different voice, say: “Greetings Your Majesty.”
5. Once they have sat back down, the person in the chair must guess who spoke to them.
6. If they guess correctly, they can stay in the chair until they’ve guessed right five times in a row. If not, they sit down and the person who tricked them replaces them in the chair.

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Moo

Difficulty: Easy
Age Range: All ages
Learning Outcomes: Acting, vocal projection, concentration.

A fun, quirky game. Be prepared for things to get weird…

1. Have the group sit in a circle.
2. Two volunteers face each other on all fours in the centre of the space, imitating cows.
3. The goal is to make the other person laugh, by simply saying “Moo.”
4. Whoever breaks leaves the circle, the winner remains until they break.

Tip: “Moo” is fun, but also a great game for concentration and vocal projection. Encourage participants to try different readings of the word. It can actually be a great way to introduce actions in pursuit of an objective.

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The Monster Calls All Those Who…

Difficulty: Easy
Age Range: 6-10
Learning Outcomes: Acting, confidence, movement.

This game works really well at the start of a lesson or session; it is very easy to explain and everyone gets a go.

1. Make a circle out of chairs, with one chair in the middle.
2. The person in the middle says: “The monster calls all those people who have… (think of something that will apply to most of the children, for example blue eyes, bare feet, likes ice cream and so forth)”.
3. The people who that call applies to have to get up and move seats. The person who is last to take a new seat is now in the middle.
4. Continue this until everyone has had a go. Each time they must think of a new thing to call out.

Tip: Try to encourage kids that being the last one to find a seat is not good, otherwise they may try and lose on purpose, which isn’t good for the flow of the game.

Tip: This game is great for introducing more abstract thinking into the class as well: once younger students are comfortable with the rules, start to set themes for questions that aren’t based on appearance/things in the room. Emotions, interests, experiences, etc.

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The Bears are Coming

Difficulty: Easy
Age Range: 6-10
Learning Outcomes: Concentration, movement.

This is a silly game that can work really well with a younger group.

1. Begin by telling a story about an age without technology where people had to chop wood etc.
2. All the students then have to find some physical action, based on an old fashioned job like wood chopping, hunting, or washing clothes and begin doing this action somewhere in the room.
3. The teacher then leaves the room momentarily and returns as the bear.
4. Once the bear arrives, the students must freeze where they are, and as the bear you must try to make the students laugh.
5. If a student laughs they join you as a bear and you work together until you have made everyone laugh.

Tip: The bears cannot touch the frozen children!

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Some Practical Tips for Acting Teachers

Even if you are armed with the best acting games in the world, there is no guarantee that your drama class will run smoothly. Keep the following tips in mind: these are straight from the expert brains of our StageMilk teaching team!

1. Keep the atmosphere fun and creative. Encourage bold choices and at all cost avoid creating an intimidating or fearful environment.
2. Though a number of games have winners and rely on competition, try not to make it all about winning and losing as students can be easily disheartened.
3. Give the more difficult students greater responsibility. Often those students who get easily bored or try to disturb the group thrive when given responsibility or focus.
4. For getting the group into a circle, count down from five and tell the students they must form a circle in that time.
5. If a game flops, find a natural ending and move straight onto something else.
6. Keep the students involved. For instance, if you are working on an improvisation game like Freeze Circle, stop every now and again and ask the students what they like, what is working, what could the story be? Reflection and discussion are really important for learning.
7.  For more inquisitive (or demanding!) classes, it can help to talk about what skills each warm-up help them learn or hone. Be ready to talk about what the benefits of an activity bring to those participating, especially if they feel silly or arbitrary. 

Additional Resources for Acting Teachers

We have developed an incredible resource for students looking to learn more about the industry, improve their acting and get feedback on the work they submit from industry professionals, actors, casting directors, agents etc. If you have any students or you yourself are looking to get some more coaching about the industry, come and check out StageMilk Drama Club.

Other StageMilk resources for acting teachers:

• How to Prepare your First Acting Class
• Original Scripts Database
• How to run a Great Drama Class
• Ten Essential Vocal Warm Ups
• How to Get More Students in Your Drama Class