Rehearsals - Day in life

We would start the day with a group warm up. Usually start by giving the actors time to stretch and wake themselves up. Then moving around the space. We would use a 1 - 10 scale for the speed of movement. they would start at 5 and move up to 10 on command. They would find interesting ways of moving around their bodies and the space.

Releasing sound or pieces of text as they moved around the space and played with each other. They tap on another actors shoulders and they would either jump on or go down to the floor.

Then they would have to move down from 5 speed to zero, at the same time without talking. They got better at this as time went on.


Then we would do some animal work. They find a space on their own and go to sleep as their animal. We worked through the stages of waking up, eating, hearing loud noises. Then we would work up to fully human.

 Why don't you try pick an animal for each character? You could research it and find pictures, watch videos on you tube and start learning how to move like it. 


After this the actors created a circle an would go around the circle leading a vocal warm up, given to them by a voice teacher.

Music was a big part of our play the actors learnt about 4 songs that they performed during scene transitions. This really helped them to become an ensemble. After vocal warm ups we would practice the songs. This video is from the early rehearsal stage, so the song isn't perfect...

We would then practice the dance, choreographed by Glenn Snowden, Drama Centre London's ballet teacher. This would be performed at the end of the play. Try stop and start the video and learn the dance yourself!

Then we would begin working through the text, sometimes we would improvise the scenes or just stick to the script. Making sure that actors had translated the script into their own words, so we could start to play...

Movement exercise:  

• Actors move leading from a certain body part (nose, chest, knees)
• Director claps and they change body part
• Then they mimic the movements of natural elements on command: falling leaves, thunder, mud, electricity, gentle breezes, whirlpool, tornado and rock
• After you have gone through the list, you repeat it, this time they can make noises related to said element
• Then repeat, but instead of using elements use colour, they embody what the colour represent when they move, and then the sound of the colour
• We would then use the themes of the play: Lust, Sex and love, money, religion etc... 
• They would decide what colour the theme was, what element it was and move accordingly. 
• They would then use a line from the text with their movement

Try it yourself, use your own themes, come up with some more elements if you like