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Blocking exercises

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Topic: Blocking exercises

Posted By: radiantshadow
Subject: Blocking exercises
Date Posted: 9/28/05 at 1:02pm

Hello! I'm a novice director working with a varied cast including several veteran but also several new actors on a college production of Shakespeare's Measure for Measure. One actor in particular is really nervous about moving onstage and tends to plant herself for scenes. Are there any good exercises, either one-on-one or cast-wide, that you could reccommend to make the blocking a little easier? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Replies:

Posted By: Nyria
Date Posted: 9/28/05 at 3:54pm

I like to have the actors go all crazy and do some runs where they REALLY OVER ACT the whole thing - words movements etc. Get as big as possible - as ridiculous as possible - then you can take it down from there. And having acted like morons for this exercise they won't feel as stupid later.

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NYRIA

Posted By: dougb
Date Posted: 9/29/05 at 11:39am

I have a few exercises that I do but let me start with a directing comment. Many actors who do not move don't because they don't think they have permission. I just finished up an acting class and I had a young woman playing Joan in Shaw's St Joan. She always stood still when she delivered her lines. Then I noticed that she bent, very slightly, at the waist when she spoke. I explained that it was her body wanting to get closer to the person she was addressing and everytime she felt herself starting to bend at the waist she should take a step forward. Once we got past that, I noticed other tentative movements and finally convinced her to follow her instincts and she ended up moving quite well.

Aside from this, here are a couple of exercises I use from time to time:
#1: The actor MUST move on each line - forward or backwards depending on the tone of the line. You will find that actors either always move forward of backwards at the start but end up moving all over the place.
#2: I give the actors a Nerf ball to toss back and forth as they say their lines.
#3: The actors throw an imaginary ball which can range from a ping pong ball to a bowling ball to anything they can imagine. The person catching has to catch the "same" ball the other throws then change it to fit the lines they are saying and throw it back (or to another actor the lines are addressed to).
#4: If the other actors move well, have everyone move at random (don't follow any blocking) without stopping for lines. When anyone delivers a line they must be face to face with the actor they are delivering the line to. If the other actors are moving your problem actor will have to move too.

Don't expect anything but a lot of fun and goofing off but it does get them moving.

Posted By: tashamay
Date Posted: 9/30/05 at 2:13am

I think dougb has some great suggestions. I can't think of any off the top of my head for actors who don't move, but I do have a good one for actors who have shuffly/itchy feet or tend to shift their weight constantly back and forth from foot to foot: if you put duct tape on the bottom of their shoes (as long as you don't mind it on your stage floor - ours is in disrepair so we don't have a problem with it) the sound of the tape sticking and unsticking makes them aware of the fact that they're continuously shifting their feet...

Always works really well for us.