Last updated June 16, 2022

Hollywood Actor Lab

GAMES

CIRCLE UP…

Introductions. Tell us about yourself outside of acting. The person next to or across from now must repeat your name and something about you. Introduces LISTENING and details.

Name Game. Introduce yourselves with a great icebreaker! Get on your feet and circle up. Everyone take turns saying their name with an emotional gesture and expression. Shout your name and strike a pose - Everyone in the circle now does ‘You’. Go in a circle taking turns so everyone gets a chance to say their names with a feeling or attitude and physical gesture and everyone else repeats it at the same time. Helps people remember names and get out of your head, into your body, and also get you out of your comfort zone with a sense of community with everyone doing it together.

Now do the same routine but add extras such as ‘Say your name and gesture with: how you feel right now, how you want to feel, how you felt all wee, what your favorite hero is, your favorite villain, how your parents say your name, etc etc. Get creative but keep repeating names so everyone gets a sense of community and also a sense of each other’s personality.

Be Neutral. Can start class where everyone says a positive thing and a challenging thing of their week (don’t say ‘negative thing’). Help everyone get to a neutral place. You can’t act when you’ve got something weighing on your mind from a parking ticket to a sick grandparent or good news they want to share. Get the garbage out. Find neutral.

Staccato, Legago. Strike a pose and make a noise! Quick and explosive movements for Stacato, and flowing, smooth movements for Legato. Like the name game, let everyone take a turn followed by the whole group imitating them and express yourself with each pose and noise you strike. Can make noises or say words to express yourself but make a move and a sound to get in touch with your instrument. Get in your body and out of your head. Shoot the energy out of your body and get moving!

Storytelling. Tell us true story about yourself and another person. Helps to ask one at a time: ‘Heres the 8 emotions: Anger, Sadness, Fear, Joy, Love, Surprise, Disgust, Shame.

Now pick a core emotion you normally have trouble expressing. Now pick a person that comes to mind and tell a short true story about the experience. This story telling is an exercise in relationship, and emotion. This will help person 1 with expressing that core emotion and to speak open and honestly about their experience. Unlock that block to your scene partner.

Part 2: The next person has to retell this story as if it were their own story. Internalize the story, now externalize the story. This is the foundation of what it means to act. They’re telling the same story with a core emotion and relationship. See how they reflect the genuine emotions and essence of the experience. This is how we can manifest real emotions whether we relate to the plot content or not. All human experiences have the same core human emotions regardless of circumstances.

Dating Game. Partner up in a round robin style, musical chairs. Set 2 or 4 mins on a timer. You have to get to know your partner on a real to life speed date (not romantic). Much like walking into an audition room, you have to be real, honest, charming, friendly, likeable. For lack of a better term: flirt with them. But same as you flirt with a puppy or a baby. You want the other to like you. Times up. Now set timer again, only this time play a character. Improvise in character. Play. Fun. Pretend. Intro to improv.

Characters. Ask the actors who they liked as a kid (Fonzie, Batman, Eddie Murphy, The Hobbit) and make them play that character for a fun improv exercise. The games can be set in a bar, a park bench, a cab ride, a coffee shop. Make them guess the character afterwards and make them antagonize each other as those characters would. Set goals for the scenes like ‘You need to use the bathroom’ or ‘You have to fire your employee’. Helps actors get a sense of play by borrowing from characters they already know and can embody. What made them walk that way or do that shoulder shrug or talk with their hands that way? This is all character behavior that defines them.

The ABC Script.

Abandoning a script, use A-Z as your script. You have to encapsulate your whole sentence and intention into a single letter as you dialogue from A-Z. Acting isn’t about lines. It’s about behavior. Many variations of this game. It’s fun to have it be a guessing game before the actors reveal what they were saying and intending behind the ABCs. This teaches the Actors all about non-verbal communication and how much DEMONSTRATIVE behavior is needed to communicate yourself. Actors rely far too much on line-readings. This game cuts to the heart of INTENTION and use of behavior to communicate:

Start with a setting (audience suggestion). Give Actor 1 a GOAL or a problem that needs solving - this makes them the antagonist (The affector) while Actor 2 has to react making them the protagonist (The affected). Actor 2 has to tend to their BEHAVIOR and observe how they deal with solving the problem. What obstacle gets created? Interesting things reveal themselves and it’s a fun guessing game to what the actors intentions are behind the gibberish.

Start with a problem. Have actor 1 need a problem to solve. Actor 2 has to reveal an obstacle. Do they solve it together? Is Actor 2 the obstacle? Whatever the problem, it’s up to both actors to figure out and solve through ACTIONS. How does Actor 1 change strategies and try different things to solve the problem? Watch how many different choices they make so they’re not beating a dead horse with the ABCs. They have to use all kinds of non-verbal communication to get the problem solved. How urgent is it? After, ask Actor 2 what they saw Actor 1’s various actions were. Ask Actor 1 what the obstacle was and how that affected them. Make it a guessing game before they reveal what their intentions were. You can now change it up with a secret, confession, life or death issue, etc.

The Turn

All pivotal scenes have an arc or as I call it, ‘The Turn’. Actors must find this in scripts and moments. Starting off here and ending up there. Sometimes this is emotional, and sometimes, this is knowledge or plot driven. A series of arcs from scene to scene will always be connected to the entire arc of the character throughout the scope of the story. This is the THROUGHLINE or SPINE of a story that all scenes should be connected to. Good scripts stay close to this throughline which is the main theme of the story. Our main protagonist goes on a journey and this spine should be understood as the story we’re telling. Being part of that story means you could be the supporting role, cop #1 or the villain or the casualty or even the lead.

Improvise games that utilize the turn of the scene. That could mean using the ABC script. You could even do an open improvise as a character. You can take your scene assignment and play and improv the scene with your own words. There are endless possibilities on how to play game and exercises to demonstrate turning emotions quickly and with high stakes. Feel the change in relationship, emotions, plot, theme, knowledge; Anything and everything to play with the TURN.

Theatre Games

Zip, Zap, Zop

BANG - Circle up and call out one name. That person ducks and the people on each shoulder have to ‘bang’ - or shoot their opposing actor to stay in the game. If the person doesn’t duck before someone ‘bangs’, they’ve been shot. Whoever is quicker to draw stays in the game and the other is eliminated.

Freeze Tag - Two actors start an improv scene with lots of physical gestures and body language. Audience can yell ‘Freeze’ to the actors. They can tag out and swap places and assume the body position of the actor and begin a whole new scene based on the pose.

Star Jump - Like freeze tag but instead of swapping out the actor, you just add on more actors each new scene by yelling ‘Star Jump’. So 1 actor begins a scene alone and someone yells ‘Star jump!’ and adds a new scene based on the pose that began that scene. Then a 3rd actor can yell ‘Star jump’ and the actors freeze when the 3rd actor enters the scene with a whole new scene based on their poses. This continues for all the actors in class, adding more actors to the scene and adding the number of different scenes you have to remember. Then when all actors are in the scene, the same order in which they entered, you now have to ‘reverse’ star jump out of the scene and return to what the previous scene was all about with 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3 actors and so on back to 1.

Vocal Warm Ups:

Sing ‘Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high. There’s a land that I dreamed of once in a lullabye’ to hit every note that’s in a scale (doh, ray, me, fa, so, la, tee, doh)... or sing: ‘Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love you, tomorrow, you’re only a day away’... or sing ‘Take on me, take me on, I’ll be gone, in a day or two.’... or sing all three together.

Each person sound off your resting vocal sound (‘Ahhhhhhh’). Each person takes turns matching your pitch. The next person goes and repeat the cycle til everyone goes. Then do each person’s lowest range (‘Hhhuuuuhhhhhhhh’). Then repeat the cycle where everyone tries to match the low pitch. Then do everyone’s highest pitch without going falsetto (‘Eeeeeeeeeeeee’).

Body Warm Ups:

Staccato / Legato - Up/ Down/ Left/ Right. Shoot a staccato body gesture and sound each direction. Then shoot a legato body gesture and sound each direction. Repeat 3 times staccato, then 3 times legato, then once each.

Make it a group activity - Stand in a circle - everyone take turns shooting a staccato/ legato pose (up, down, left, right) and each person matches one at a time taking turns.

Stretching - everyone take turns picking a body stretch for the group to do next.

Teach me something: 2 minute lessons

Each person take 2 minutes to become the teacher and teach the group something new. Examples: how to pirouette, how to say a greeting in a foreign language, how to sign language, how to do a karate kick, how to throw a good punch, how to whistle really loud, etc.

Acting / Performance Warm Ups:

Lyrics challenge. Google your favorite ‘sing in the car/ shower’ lyrics. They mean something to you. They invoke emotion to you for a reason. They’re not your words but you have a relationship with this ‘script’. Now you have to perform the lyrics to the audience and make it clear how this song makes you feel. You can monologue it, read it like a diary entry, shout it out loud, beat-poet the words, recite it like Shakespeare, or sing it out loud. Up to you as long as you communicate an honest portrayal of the emotions and meaning it creates for you.

Tongue twisters: Peter pan, Sally seashells, Toy boat, Red leather, etc.

One Sentence Story telling

One Word Story telling

Guest Expert Speaker - 1 minute continuous lecture about a topic.

Conspiracy Theorist - 1 minute continuous lecture about same topic.

Emotional Connections and Contrasting your voice and body

15 Seconds:

15 Second Death scene - Audience needs to guess how you died. Make it real and nuanced.

15 Second voice mails:

1) Loving voicemail to the oldest, sweetest person you know.

2) Romantic and flirty voicemail to someone you want to get down with

1) Rage: Rage out to someone in your life that deserves your wrath and fury.

2) Love: Who do you miss and love and needs to hear it? Tell them now.

Explore other core emotions with this one. Opposite ends of the emotional spectrum which are often connected.

Space work: Take a blob of clay. Mime the clay object into something specific and hand it over to next actor. They now have the object for a beat til they mush the clay object into a new object and hand it over. Repeat til everyone in the circle has performed and created an object.

Mime the shared object in the middle of the circle and work as a group to move it. Example, lift a giant man-hole cover and put it back down. Now it’s a giant cement block. Now it’s a giant bedsheet you all have to fold. Now it’s a beached whale you have to put back in the ocean. Now it’s an overturned Volkswagen beetle you have to upright. Work as a group.

Spirit Animal. Everyone walking in circles in characters or spirit animals. Each person has a turn to shout out a ‘spirit animal’ which can be anything from ‘monkey’ to ‘batman’ to ‘a crack addict’ or ‘awkward dad at the club’. Everyone has to embody the spirit animal as a group for a round.

Hitchhiker - 2 in a car pick up 3rd who comes in as a strong personality. All 3 passengers eventually adopt this personality and characteristics. Pickup new hitchhiker and round robin the actors.

Hey sha-walla-walla boom. Sha-bang-bang boom. Sha-walla-walla Shakin your thang.

‘My name is: _____’

I ‘________’

I like to: _____’

And now it’s time to ‘_____’

Zombie: Set up chairs throughout the space. The zombie can only walk. Everyone else can run. You have to prevent the zombie from sitting in the open chair by coordinating with the group. When you leave your chair, the zombie can walk to sit in it. When they finally are able to land in a chair, whoever is standing is the new zombie.

IMPROV 101:

Start with 3 Sentence Play.

Ring everyone in with a warm round of applause. They have to state 3 sentences with the information: relationship/ setting/ problem in any order. Start with person on right has sentence 1; for example: ‘Hey mom, I’m hungry’. By way of process of elimination, person 2 on left has 2 things to choose from which is problem or setting. They can say ‘I didn’t bring any food to the beach’. So actor 1 has 1 option left and can say ‘I guess you’ll just have to go hunt for food now’. Then end the play with a warm round of applause. Let everyone have a turn with round robin.

4 Sentence play - Now add a 4th sentence with ‘Plot Twist!’. Actor 2 now has the last sentence and can add a plot twist sentence such as: ‘But there’s no fish so I’m going to eat you!’.

2 Actors. Now take audience suggestions and start with giving the actors the following information to play by. Ask audience to:

Give me a relationship
Give me a setting
Give me a problem based on this information.

Now the 2 actors have to begin a scene with the given information and have an open improvisation.

Continue once everyone has a turn - but now take away the genre of comedy. See how committed they can go with real emotion and unlocking truth without the guise of comedy and humor. Get real.

Repetition exercises.

Stand apart from each other like soft sponges. This is a metaphor to relax your body and to accept everything that comes at you. Listen and absorb everything - don’t be defensive. React to your scene partner immediately without pause or thought. This is all about reacting honestly, purely, and without intellect or manners. This is reaction. It’s a ping pong match of statements fired back and forth to immediately exercise the reactionary impulses that we swallow and suppress all day, every day. React to one another by repeating the sentences back and forth. Do nothing unless you absolutely have to. Don’t direct yourself and don’t try to be entertaining - just be real, truthful, and honest in the moment. The only goal here is to stay grounded and real without any performance or ego at play. Just truthful, honest reactions in the moment. Exercise your ability to react without being in your head, but to be in your gut and emotional reactive state. Impuses rule this game when you can’t pause or stop to intellectualize. This is the exact opposite of how we’re taught to learn to behave like civilized adults with manners. We want to see a series of emotions play out through rapid fire reactions.

2 minutes of reality. Perform 2 mins as real as you possibly can. Example is to do your morning mirror routine or making coffee the way you really do every single day.

Breathing and Meditation exercises:

Body parts that are affected by emotions and characteristics.

Emotional journey exercises (resetting from emotion to emotion). Teacher calls out an emotion (anger, joy, disgust, rage, love, power, fear) and ask, where you feel it in your body. Squeeze that body part muscle to isolate it. Relax it now and breath air into it and fill that air with that emotion and body part. Now make a sound from that body part and that’s what that emotion sounds like and that’s where it lives in your body.

Breathing exercises - Linklater breathing technique with voicing emotion through breath. Imagine each breath you take starts with a bubble that passes from the air into your mouth, down your throat, down your lungs, into your stomach and into the pit of your gut where a pond of emotion rests. The bubble touches the pond of emotion sending ripples throughout your body. The bubble now contains that emotion (exactly what you are feeling right there and then without trying - simply your truth in the moment) and the bubble travels back where it came from to the tip of your lips and bursts.

Now let the bubble cross your vocal chords and add a ‘huh’ sound to the bubble. That sound is the truthful sound of your emotions without effort or agenda. Now had a double tap ‘huh-huh’. That’s a true unfiltered noise that is an honest sound. Now add general words to associate that truth with such as: ‘me, you, wow, no, yes, stop, go, wait, love’. These are honest unfiltered sounds coming out as words. This is truthful breath and sound and voice. Connecting your breath to your emotions, thoughts, and voice is ground zero. Breath is everything.