Acting 101: Warm Ups

As everyone in acting can attest to, good warm up time spent is time well spent indeed. A warm up not only loosens muscles and keeps the body limber for the acting performance ahead but it also helps sharpen the reflexes, mind and ability to react to others upon the stage. Acting is not merely speaking lines and moving across a stage, taking bows at the end of the show, but acting is a whole body experience and one that needs be started in a way that prepares the whole being for the show ahead.

Warmups can be as simple or as difficult as the director wishes them to be. Warm ups in relationship to a lesser movement oriented show may be centered more on speech and less on intricate movements than say a warm up period that those who are going to produce many and varied physical activities on stage might use. Fencing, musical theatre and those shows which are more physical in nature benefit from a more drawn out, complete warm up time and thus the production of the show is better as well. Vocal warm ups are common and most directors have their favorites, but physical and imaginative warm ups are important as well and need to be addressed as well to have a fresh, sharp show.

One warm up might be something called "wake up"
In this, actors will warm up as a group. they will find their own space and begin concentration. Upon the word of the director, each actor willl begin to act out waking up in the morning to a stimulus other than that of an alarm clock. One of the most important parts of this warmup is for actors to dig within themselves and think of a unique way to wake up. A rooster is a very basic wake up and should be avoided because it shows little imagination however a robot who comes into the bedroom and wakes up the actor with a brass band and hands him perhaps a tuba to play along with is one that shows imagination and depth for the actor.
Variations on this warm up could be other actors entering the scene and adding their own signature to the mix. One actor could come in and sing "76 Trombones" from the Music man thus linking to the musical instruments, while another might come in with tools to fix the robot. The sky in the limit and the objective the stretching of the imagination and the improvisation that is needed onstage.

Another warm up for the imagination:
"Brushes"
This is an exercise in which students try to remember as many different sorts of brushes as they can and silently begin to use them. As soon as another actor recognizes the brush, he/she takes it from the first actor and turns that brush into a different sort of brush. This could begin with a toothbrush and end up with a brush that is cleaning intricate jewelry in a store. the possibilities again are endless but it helps to fine tune movements for actors and keep their imaginations fresh and ready for change which often occurs without notice onstage.

These are but a few exercises in theatre, but they help immensely when it comes to sharpening the mind, imagination and senses of both the beginning actor and the seasoned actor as well. Break a leg!