UNIT III. Concentration

 

FOCUS, LISTENING AND RESPONDING

MAIN OBJECTIVES:
1) Review stage conventions
2) Introduce concept of concentration
3) Practice concentration 

1. WARM-UPS

 

Lead two or three physical and vocal warm-up activities.

2. SKILL BUILDING

 

Review Stage ConventionsCheating Out, Staying Open, Blocking, Pointing with upstage arm and kneeling on downstage knee.
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Concentration Point (Concentration) Introduce the idea of concentration first and then play the game. In a circle, students try to precisely mirror a leader who points to the center of the circle.
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Concentration Claps (Concentration, Teamwork) This exercise helps students practice concentration as a group. Students move across a circle and clap in precise unison with another student with whom they have made eye contact.
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Rant (Concentration) This game requires students to focus on what they are saying, shutting out the distraction of other voices on stage. In a team of five or six, students speak energetically and simultaneously about a debate topic supplied by the teacher. 
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What Are You Doing? (Concentration, Commitment) One actor mimes an action, but–when a second actor asks what they are doing–the first responds by naming a completely unrelated action. The second actor must then mime the unrelated action until the first asks the question “What are you doing?”--at which point, the second actor names a completely unrelated action. The cycle continues until one of the actors hesitates too long or names an action too similar to one already named. The game requires students to maintain a split focus which requires concentration. It also demands that a student listen to a fellow actor and immediately respond to what that actor says.
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3. CLOSING ACTIVITY

 

Play any game from a previous lesson you think would help reinforce skills learned so far.

 
 

© 2023, Friends of the Groom Theater Company

 

Curtains Up Curriculum by Friends of the Groom Theater Co. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Curtains Up is a training program designed for young actors, sponsored by Friends of the Groom Theater Company.
It is available to the general public for free under the terms of the Creative Commons License above.