educ420

Method relaxation exercise
Sit in a chair and let your body go limp like a rag doll, relaxing your neck against the top of the chair and letting your head fall back. Now, lift one arm up to the side to check for tension. You can move the arm around to check for tension in different muscles and then let the arm fall back, relaxed. Move on to do the same for the other arm and both legs, then release tension in your back, torso, face and neck. You can access the facial muscles through grimacing and check your neck by gently rolling the head from side to side. Also try to release tension in your throat and tongue. If you feel yourself tensing up even more or if you feel an emotion swelling up, take a deep breath and release a long “ah” sound, making sure you keep your throat relaxed. Continue to release the emotion through sound, so you don’t tense up again. If you are a beginning actor who has never studied Lee Strasberg’s Method before, don’t try this exercise without being supervised by a method acting teacher. It’s hard to identify tension at first and you want to make sure you’re in a relaxed position where you won’t hurt your neck or upper back.

Game Type:
Improvisation

Age Range: 10+

Number of Participants:
5-15

Materials: None

Explanation:
The host of a party and the guests acquire the emotional state of
whoever enters the party.

How to Play:
One person begins, as the host, with a neutral emotion. The first
guest knocks or rings the bell (saying "knock-knock" or
"ding-dong"), and enters in highly charged emotional
state. Emotions that work well with this exercise include,
excitement, fear, anger, jealousy, joy, sadness, etc. As soon as
the host picks up on the emotion, she "catches" it, and
interacts with the guest. The next guest enters with a different
emotion, and the host and guest "catch" it. Things get
more chaotic as more guests enter, as each new guest causes a
different emotion to permeate the party. Once the first guest has
entered, the participants can interact with different people
until they notice a change in the emotion, and then they must
adapt that emotion. The participants should not watch the new
guests for the emotional state, rather, they should let the
emotion "travel" to them as it will. To make things
really tricky, two guests could enter at the same time with
different emotions. The participants will be really wired after
this game, so plan accordingly to use that energy.

Notes: If this
has not been discussed before, it might be a good time to discuss
with the participants how to express negative emotions such as
anger without hitting any other participants- what verbal and
physical things show anger (in performance) without hurting
anyone in reality.

OPEN
SCENES

The two lines in each
scene are to be repeated over and over again in a predetermined
situation, i.e., for scene one, character A is stuck underneath a
fallen tree, and character B is not strong enough to lift the
tree.

One

A: Help me.

B: I can’t.

Two

A: I’m sorry.

B: It’s all your
fault.

Three

A: Stop it.

B: Make me.

Four

A: What are you doing?

B: What does it look
like?

Five

A: It’s time to go.

B: Not yet.

Six

A: I need you.

B: Just a minute.

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