From ‘101 Drama Games and Activities’
Age: 7 to adult
Players: Whole Group
Time: 10 minutes
Skills: Storytelling
The group tells a story, with the conductor pointing at different people in any order, one by one.
The whole of the group sits or stands in front of one person, who is the conductor. The conductor imagines that she is conducting an orchestra. The group tells a story, with the conductor pointing at different people in any order, one by one. The conductor decides how long each person continues to tell the story before moving on to somebody new. Of course, she may change at the end of a sentence, or at any time. The group should try to keep the narration going as smoothly as possible.
Director’s Tips:
- Give a starting phrase, such as ‘It was a dark, dark night…’
- Experiment with the length of time you give to each person
- Don’t always wait until the end of the sentence to move to another storyteller!
Play Online:
- Call out participants’ names instead of pointing at them
Count To 20
A classic concentration and focus exercise, where the group tries to count to twenty.
Daft Definitions
Put random words together to invent new concepts! Great storytelling warm-up.
Drama Games for Story Books
Two amazing drama activities for bringing story books to life through drama!
Family Portraits
Groups make family portraits by striking funny poses.
Fruit Salad
A fun game encouraging fast reactions and verbal dexterity by saying the names of fruits.
Grandma’s Footsteps
This classic playground game is perfect for exploring dramatic tension. Plenty of fun, surprise and cheating!
Guess Who I Am
A fun way of creating characters from any picture.
Imaginarium
An exciting and completely unpredictable way to brainstorm ideas.
Night Watchman
The museum is closed for the night. The watchman is making his rounds. But something strange is going on...
One Word At A Time
A story is told by the group or in pairs, with each person adding one word at a time.
Open and Close
A brilliant method of performing a series of freeze-frames to tell a story in a drama lesson.
Pecking Order
Can you work out where you stand in the pecking order?
Poetry in Motion
Groups explore short or long poems through drama and movement.
Random Sound Stories
A story is told by the group or in pairs, with each person adding one word at a time.
Sculptor and Statue
Students work in pairs and one mould the other's body into a character or shape.
Shoe Shuffle
Develop imagination and mime skills using everyday objects
Siren (Voice Warm-Up)
An effective and easy humming warm up for exploring and extending the vocal range.
Soundscapes
The group is conducted to create a sound picture or “soundscape” using their voices and bodies.
Status Pictures
In pairs, create a still image where one of you has a higher status than the other.
Ten Second Objects
Drama game - groups make the shape of an object using their bodies - in only ten seconds!
The Adverb Game
An amusing mime guessing game (which also helps with learning grammar) with an adaptation for playing online
There Is Only One Liar
A psychological but fun group dynamics game from Augusto Boal.
Three Changes
An observation and getting to know you game - with online version
Three Word Sentences
Sometimes three words are just enough.
Two Truths And A Lie
Play online or live - tell your partner three things about yourself – two of which are true and one
What Are You Doing?
Quick thinking and action is essential in this funny mime and spoken language drama game.
Where Do You Stand?
A fast, fun and effective way of discovering everybody’s opinions about a subject
