WHAT ARE
YOU DOING?
CURTAINS UP ACTING STUDIO
WHAT ARE YOU DOING?
A Drama Game for Kids:
Think Quick and Commit
Two actors compete by listening carefully, thinking quickly, and instantly acting out the activities named by their partner. This is a great theater exercise for improving concentration and creative thinking.
What a Demonstration of
”What Are You Doing?”
Step-by-Step Instructions
This game is played in pairs. In this case, let’s call one actor “John,” and the other actor “Emily.”
John begins by miming an action, e.g, tying his shoe. Emily approaches John and asks: “John, what are you doing?” Rather than answering, “I’m tying my shoe.”, John has to name an action completely different from the one he is actually doing, e.g., “I’m painting a house.”
Immediately, Emily begins to mime painting a house. In other words, she has to do the action John said he was doing.
Once Emily is fully committed to house painting, John can stop tying his shoe, approach Emily and ask: “Emily, what are you doing?” Emily must then name an action that is completely different from what she’s doing, and completely different from anything that’s been named before, e.g., “I’m playing baseball.”
John immediately mimes playing baseball. At that point, Emily can stop painting the house, and ask John, “What are you doing?”
The game continues back and forth until one of the pair hesitates too long before naming an action or names something too close to an action that’s been named before.
MORE DRAMA GAMES AND THEATER ACTIVITIES YOU MIGHT ENJOY:
EMOTIONAL FRIENDS - A group of actors perform a scene in a series of emotional states supplied by the game leader.
HITCHHIKER - Actors pretending to ride in a car gradually adopt the unique behavior of each hitchhiker they pick up.
YES/AND - A pair of actors improvise a three-line scene by accepting and adding on to their partners ideas.
© 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.