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5 Ways to Keep All Your Actors Engaged

By Jennifer Lade 

Jennifer Lade is a drama teacher and community theatre enthusiast.  She teaches and directs plays at a program for homeschooled students in Massachusetts.  She loves acting and singing in community theatre productions.  Some of her favorite past roles are Morticia in The Addams Family and The Cat in the Hat in Seussical the Musical.  She earned a BA in English from Providence College. 

Your stage manager is sick, the parent volunteer has a dentist appointment, and the assistant director is stuck in traffic.  Or maybe you never had an assistant director to begin with!  But for whatever reason, your rehearsal is running on a skeleton crew and you have a large group of small actors you need to engage before they start climbing the backdrop.  Here are five ways to keep all the actors involved while still making progress with your production.

1. Have the older or more experienced members of the cast lead the younger ones.  There are usually some students who are happy to take on a leadership role when asked.  These students can lead a vocal warmup, head up stretches before a choreography rehearsal, or play some teambuilding games (click here to read my article “Five Ways to Practice Teambuilding in Your Youth Theatre Show”).
   
   You can also divide and conquer, breaking actors into smaller groups to run lines or review a song, putting at least one experienced or responsible student in each group to keep them on task.  With students’ help, no rehearsal time is wasted, and you grow young leaders in the process.
   
   
2. Give offstage actors a side project.  While you're working with some actors on the stage, invite the others to create tangible items that contribute to the production.  They can make “Meet the Cast” posters, gluing the headshot, name, and role of each actor onto the poster and using drawings, stickers, or paper cutouts to embellish it.  They can make scenery out of cardboard or foam board.  (A youth production of Anastasia I saw featured a 5-foot-tall cardboard replica of the Eiffel Tower, made entirely by students!)  Some students could even help type up a program or organize concessions that will be sold at the show.  For example, I had students fill bags with “magic beans” (jelly beans) for the concession table at our upcoming “Jack and the Beanstalk” musical, Pioneer Drama’s Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum!  Just remember, side projects might require some advance preparation to make sure you have supplies on hand, such as poster board, markers, students’ photos, etc.
   
   Not surprisingly, creativity on the stage often translates to creative and artistic ability offstage as well.  When I have invited my students to help with props, sets, and front-of-house creations, the results are bright, detailed, and heartfelt.  Most importantly, it gives students additional ownership of the show, as they can see their offstage contributions as an important complement to the onstage action.
   
   
3. Allow students to play games that don’t require much supervision.  Bonus points if the games contribute to learning the show!
   
   At the theatre class I run, my staff consists of...  me.  Just me.  So, when I was busy directing Jack and his mother and sister in one of their scenes, the other actors took it upon themselves to play musical chairs.  They borrowed my Bluetooth speaker and blasted “Market Day,” the first big ensemble number in the play.  It definitely helped them learn the song, as they played it over and over again in between rounds of musical chairs! 
   
   Another simple game suggestion is “Simon Says.”  To tailor it to theatre, have the commands be stage directions or choreography moves:  “Simon says, move stage right!”  or “Simon says, grapevine, then step-ball-change!”
   
   
4. Stagger actors’ breaks.  If it’s customary to give students a break, don’t have them all take one at once.  Instead, send people for breaks a few at a time while continuing to work with the others.  This way, you can make progress throughout the entire rehearsal while still giving breaks for kids to grab a sip of water or glance at their script.  You might be very tired at the end of the rehearsal, but you’ll have a great sense of accomplishment.
   
   
5. Surprise the kids with a fun snack or other prize.  If you know you’re walking into the rehearsal short-staffed, pick up donuts on the way, put your theatre’s popcorn maker to use, or start offloading old merch from past shows onto your actors.  Make sure the treat is available to everyone, not something the actors must earn through merit.  The idea is to boost morale and keep the kids guessing about what delightful thing will happen next during their theatre experience. 
   
   While it’s hard to argue that serving snacks directly affects the final product of the play, this concept of “surprise and delight” is taking off in classrooms across the country, and it has been proven to keep students focused.  Plus, my own personal experience suggests that chocolate glaze and sprinkles make actors very loyal to their director.
   
   

Being short on help is no fun, but with a little creativity and planning ahead, you might find that you have all the help you need in your actors.