Drama Games to Try Over Zoom

adapted from​ Breakaway Kids Camps: Theatre Sports Games Book

www.breakawaycamp.org.au

Actor’s Nightmare
This one is played by 2 players, one of which gets their lines on paper (like a script). The other
player should justify whatever the scripted player says.

Notes: You can use existing plays for this, but also lines from comics. Whoever gets the
script should not forget to play/act. Only his lines are defined, not what he does, or how
he does the lines.

Bartender
Ask for a silly problem. Player 1 goes into a bar and explains his woes to the bartender in a
song. The bartender then fixes the problem in another song.

Coming Home
Ask players to think of someone they know. Then ask them to play how that person would come
home from work.
Players need to pay attention to: -
The environment: what does that person’s house look like? Is it neat and tidy or is it a mess?
Big house or small apartment?
What does he do? Does the character change clothes or showers or has a beer first? Does he
eat? If so, what? Microwave dinner, carryout, pizza delivery or cornflakes?
What mood is that character in? How was work today?
Variations
You can come up with other situations in which characters enter a location.

Continuing Emotions
A ‘neutral’ scene is started, and is then interrupted (frozen) several times by the MC. The scene
is then continued but all characters switch to an emotion provided by the audience.

Continuing Styles
A ‘neutral’ scene is started. This scene gets interrupted several times by the MC, and then
continued in a film/ literature/ drama/ TV-program style provided by the audience.
The platform and the story need to continue flawlessly.
Dating Game
This is played like a Blind Date show. One player leaves the stage, and the audience provides
endowments for the 3 others. Examples might be No. 1 is stupid, No. 2 is a serial killer and No.
3 thinks he’s a macho. 4th player gets to ask 3 questions, and each of the others answers it.
After the questions player 4 should guess what the endowments were.

Day in the Life

The MC picks a member of the audience and interviews this person about their average (work)
day ​(this can be a student being one of their parents).
Questions asked may include:
“What is your job?”
“Where do you live, with who?”
“What are your hobbies?”
“How do you get to work?”
“Who are your colleagues?”

The players then improvise a day in the life of this audience member, based on the elements
provided by the interview.

Death in a Minute
2 or 3 players play a 1 minute scene, in which one player must die.

Fun House Mirror

This is a variation of the classic Mirror exercise. Played in pairs, one player is designated as the mirror.
This mirror distorts the image; perhaps it blows everything up, makes everything wider, taller, smaller,
narrower, prettier, uglier.
(On zoom, one student can be the person visiting the fun house, and everyone else in the class is
the mirror, teacher verbally announces the type of mirror)
Doo Wop
This is another structured song format, sung as a 1950’s doo-wop. It can be structured in
various ways. Here’s one in 5 beats: ask for an object. Then: -
Lead singer sings verse about the object

Chorus: I love my (object)

Verse 1: explain how you found your object

Chorus: I love my (object)

Verse 2: That fateful night ... (explain how you lost your beloved object.)

(Bridge) Explain how bad you miss your object

Chorus: I miss my (object)

Verse 3: explain how your replaced your object by a new (or other) one

chorus: I love my new (object)!

Dubbed Movie
2 or more actors play a scene, but they don’t speak, although they can move their mouths as if they are
speaking. 2 or more players sit in front of the action, and provide the speech.
The effect is (or should be) like watching a dubbed movie.

Eights
Excellent game to warm up those muscles. Everybody scatter around, stand up relaxedly. Ask the players
to make an ‘8’ movement with their left big toe, then their left foot, then whole left leg. Repeat with
right toe/foot/leg. Repeat with left index finger, left hand, left lower arm, left arm. Repeat with right
hand/finger/arm. Try both arms. In opposite directions.
Make 8-shaped movements with your pelvis. Try horizontally and vertically. Try changing direction. Ditto
for left shoulder, right shoulder, both shoulders. Ditto for your head.
End exercise by making eights simultaneously with as many parts of your body as possible.
Family Portraits (send them to breakout rooms to plan)
Fun game to get everyone to work together. Players are going to ‘build’ family portraits.
Ask for e.g: -
Family of accountants, bean counters
Family of Pop Stars
Family of snakes, rats, cats
Family of garden tools
Tell the players you will want to see who’s who in the family. We also want to see who gets
along with who, who’s the black sheep of the family, and so on. This only works if players watch
each other closely.
(Note: For zoom, it could be fun to show them the opening to “The Brady Bunch” first)

Gibberish Expert
One player is an expert on a subject, often provided by the audience. Furthermore, he’s from a
foreign country (perhaps also supplied by the audience). The expert gives a lecture in Gibberish
and a second player translates.

Foreign Movie

2 players play a story in ​Gibberish​, others translate. The idea is to build the story together: the ‘actors’
give elements to the translators, and the translators can help steer the action for the ‘actors’.

Front Desk
We play a scene, set in the lobby of a hotel. One or more players play the receptionist(s) and the others
play guests arriving or checking out, bell boys, repairmen, you name it.
Players construct the environment together. If a character says it is raining outside, then all other
characters should run with that.
Greetings
All players start milling about the room. You then ask them to greet each other (wave, say “Hello, how
are you,” etc). Players just greet each other, move on, and greet the next player they meet. Then ask
the players to greet each other in a more specific way. ​(On Zoom: This can be done by rapid fire
assigning breakout rooms)
greet each other like you greet a long lost friend greet someone you don’t really trust
greet an ex-lover
greet someone you really hate
someone you have a secret crush on someone you had a one-night stand with someone that
sold you a crappy used car someone with bad breath
Greet someone like you are a cowboy, a soldier, a nanny, a Russian farmer,...

Group Freeze
Everyone starts dancing. Host will message one person telling them to physically “freeze.” As soon as
one player stops dancing, everyone needs to freeze in position. As soon as everyone is froze, start
dancing again.
Obviously, the idea is for the group to freeze as quickly as possible.

Hitch Hiker
Use 4 chairs to build the interior of a car. One player starts driving the car, and another player becomes
a hitchhiker, hiking a ride. The hitch hiker character has a particular character tick or particular emotion,
which the driver takes over.
Other hitch hikers join in, each with their own characteristics or emotions, taken over by the driver and
the passengers in the car as the hiker joins. When the car is full, one of the players leaves the car to
make room for the new guest.​ (A player can leave by turning off their camera)
Notes: Don’t forget to justify leaving the car.

Mantra
Let the players play a short scene. Then ask them to repeat the following mantra in their head, and
replay the scene ‘I’m so happy, I’m so happy’. In many cases, you will find that the whole scene becomes
happier.

Movie Review

4-10 players. Ask the audience for a movie title. 2 players will do an interview: one will be the reviewer.
As the movie is discussed, other players play parts of the movie.
No Doubles 1-10 (okay to play in zoom in small groups, too hard for a large class)

Nice concentration game. Everyone in a circle. We will count from 1 to 10. Any player can start by saying
‘1’. Then any other player can say ‘2’ and so one. If 2 players say a number at the same time we start all
over again.

Non Sequitor

Place players in pairs, let them hold a casual conversation about their work, the weather, anything.
There will be 4 signals (hand clap or blow a whistle):

First signal: keep the conversation going, but behave strange, make bizarre gestures and jerky body
movements

Second signal: keep the strange movements going, and continue the conversation in gibberish Third
signal: keep calm, but continue the conversation in gibberish

Fourth signal: stay calm and talk normal

No P

Players play a scene (perhaps based on an audience suggestion) but they cannot use the letter ‘P’ (or
any other letter). When a player uses a ‘P’, the audience screams ‘Die’ and the player is replaced by
another on. The scene continues, and the new player needs to take over the character of the player he
replaces.

One Line Scene

Play a one or two minute scene, where only one line of dialog can be spoken. Indicate to the players
when they have, say, 20 seconds left.

This exercise teaches players what can be communicated using non-verbal communication. Things like,
‘thank you’, ‘I love you’, ‘I appreciate this’, ‘I’m sorry” and so forth can all be communicated non-
verbally.
One Mouth

One player is going to interview all other players, but the group of other players are really one character.
This character answers the questions, but all players provide the answer at the same time, as if the
character is speaking out of many mouths simultaneously. The answers should make sense (at least
grammatically) and should be clear. If one player starts answering a question by saying ‘YYYY’ no-one
should try and turn that into a ‘No’.

Notes

Works best if everyone goes for the obvious and simple answers. Don’t try to speak too fast, but
take your time to let the answer organically grow. Coach players to take the lead if the answers
are sagging, and to happily give up the lead as soon as they feel they got the lead. Move players
that stubbornly always take the lead to another position in the group (at the back or at the
ends).

Open Your Hand

Let the players walk around the room leisurely. Then ask them to stop, open their hands, and let
something fall out of the sky, right into their hands. Let them name the object in their hands, set it aside,
move on and open their hands again.

Notes

Some people find this a bit of a scary game, as if they are afraid they are not going to come up with
anything. Explain that there are no wrong answers.

Some players will complain that everything that falls out of the sky is a dead bird (or whatever). Explain
to them that this is fine too. Most players, if reassured that they really can’t go wrong, move on to other
stuff after 10 dead birds or so.

Variations

You can tell players they can vary the way they extend their hands or hand. They can hold hands in front
of them, above their head or close to the ground. See if different stuff shows up.
Peruvian Ball Game

Everyone starts milling about the room, miming a particular kind of ball. It can be light or heavy, have a
texture, whatever, as long as it is particular. At the trainer’s sign, everyone passes their ball to someone
else. (Passing could be done in breakout rooms)

Popcorn

The teacher now talks the group through this exercise. Everyone is a piece of corn, the floor is a big pan,
and we’re going to make popcorn.

We slowly start heating the pan; as the pan gets hotter, corn starts to ‘pop’. A player can ‘pop’ by
jumping up, clapping hands above their head, and saying ‘pop’.

Make sure the ‘popping’ starts gradually, ‘popping’ is a group thing, and in the end, ‘popping’ should
stop.

Variations

Forget to take the pan off the fireplace, and have the popcorn start charring.

Presents

Great warm-up exercise that helps you blank your mind. Good for control freaks. Players stand in pairs
and give each other presents. To give a present, you just open your arms/hands to indicate you’re
holding something. Don’t try to think about what you’re holding, but give it to your companion.

Upon receiving the present, you give it a name, the first thing that comes to mind. You say something
like ‘Oh, thanks, a little dead bird’. You promptly ignore your present and return something else to your
companion.

This game works best if it’s played fast, so players really don’t have the time to preconceive. It’s also nice
and positive, as everybody is always extremely happy with their presents, no matter what they are.

If players complain they always receive the same present (“It’s always a book”) tell them this is quite ok.
They should be happy to receive so many books. See also Spontaneity for related games.
Press Conference

3 to 8 players. One player leaves the room (send them to the zoom waiting room), while the audience
provides the name of a famous or historical person. The ‘absent’ player will give a press conference, but
he does not know who he is.

The other players are journalists, whose questions should provide indications to who the mystery guest
might be.

Game ends when our player guesses who he is.

Props

In this game the players need to come up with an original/funny use of a prop. They cannot use the prop
the way it is supposed to be used for, obviously. ​(On zoom this can be an infomercial to sell it as a
product)

Puppets

4 players. 2 players will be puppets; these players offer the lines of dialog in the scene, but they are not
allowed to move about themselves. The other 2 players are the puppet masters, that will provide the
movements for the puppets. (This can be done in advance with an activity making paper bag puppets)

Scene To Music

A silent scene is played, in which the characters’ emotions are controlled by the music.

(On zoom, might help to show students a scene from old silent films)
Simon Says

You are Simon, and you tell the players to do exactly what Simon tells them to do, but only if Simon’s
sentence starts with “Simon says”. Any time a player does what Simon tells his to do, without preceding
that with “Simon says” is out.

Tell the players the game starts when you say “Simon says the game has started”. Then try to trick them
into doing stuff they’re not supposed to do. Ask them e.g. if they understand the rules; whoever nods is
out. Try telling players that are out they can join in again; if they do they’re out again.

(Players who are “out” turn off their cameras)

Translation for the Deaf

We need 3 players for this game. One will be an expert on a topic provided by the audience; another will
be the interviewer. The third will provide simultaneous translation for the hearing impaired, using ‘sign
language’.

Notes
This works best if the interview itself does not go too fast, so the translator has plenty of time to
translate. Also helpful are returning keywords that the translator can always translate the same
way.
A gimmick is to translate everything literally, even ‘dummy’ words, like ‘oh’, ‘great’, ‘hm hm’.

What Has Changed (could be done in breakout rooms)

Played in pairs. One player observes another closely. Then he closes his eyes, and his partner changes
three things in his appearance. He opens his eyes again and tries to discover what has changed.
What Would He Be If

Choose one player and let his stand in front of the class. Then ask the whole class to think what he
would be if he were a car, a flower, a building, a era, a foreign country, a mineral, a beverage, your name
it.

Notes

Tell the group there are no wrong answers. You may want to ask players what triggered their
responses. The answers will probably vary widely.

If you are doing a series of workshops, it may also be interesting to play this game early on,
before people know each other, and then again after a couple of weeks, when everyone has
gotten to know everyone a bit better. See if the answers are any different.

Without Sound

A scene is played, in which no talk and no sounds are allowed.

Yes Lets

Excellent warm-up, and great introduction to Accepting. Pick a group activity, like throwing a party or
organizing a picnic. One player starts, saying “Let’s ...” filling in what he wants to do. Then he starts
actually doing what he said he wanted to do. A second player jumps in, saying “Let’s ...” do something
else, to advance the group activity. Both players say “Yes, let’s do that” and start doing whatever
suggested. Third player jumps in, suggests what to do, and again all players loudly agree to do it, and
actually do it. Continue till everyone has suggested something.