MAR
14

How to Keep Young Actors Invested During Rehearsals

By Grey Pratt, Customer Service Rep, Pioneer Drama Service 

Grey has been involved in theatre for 16+ years, starting from when they were a small child.  Through the years, their participation has included acting, tech, directing, designing, writing, construction, and much more.  The theatre arts have a special place in Grey’s heart, and they invest themself in any facet they can, which has led to the exciting opportunity of being employed with Pioneer Drama. 

When working on a play or musical, it can be hard to keep everyone involved at all times.  After all, not everyone has something to do in every scene.  How do you keep young actors involved during practice?

First, here are two rules to try to follow with all rehearsals:

• Build variety into your rehearsals.  For example, start with a warm-up game to get the wiggles out and your kids focused on the task at hand.  Then move into singing or dancing (if applicable), in which everyone can participate.  Then move onto rehearsing a few scenes in groups.  Remember that young attention spans are short, so variation is an important tool to utilize!
• Have help, especially if you have a large cast and young actors.  Utilize volunteers, parents, and colleagues to help you.  Maybe there are some high school or college students interested in lending a hand?  Ideally, with younger students, you’ll have one helper for every eight kids you have to help ease your rehearsals.

Okay, so you’re following these rules, but you still have the problem that not everyone has something to do in every scene.  If your director’s book has a character/scene breakdown, you can clearly see who is in which scene with whom.  Use this to create a rehearsal schedule.  It’s good to identify which scenes include the same actors, and which scenes have completely different actors.  If you have a volunteer to help you, you can rehearse one scene with a group while a volunteer works with a different group on a different scene.  If you are on your own, you can also have seat work — maybe a theatre-themed crossword puzzle — for the group you aren’t rehearsing at the moment.

Of course, it’s possible you still have some actors who are not in either of the scenes you are rehearsing.  If that is the case, give them something to do!  One of the kids can be a prompter, another can time the scene, and another can start the music (if applicable).  If you have any absent actors, you can have someone stand in for that role to fill the gap.  You can also assign some actors not in a scene to watch other scenes play out and take notes.  Could they hear and understand everyone?  Could they see everyone?  Did everyone stay in character?  Let them know that their feedback is essential and helpful to the overall rehearsal.  However, make sure they give their notes to you to share so that all feedback is coming from you, not other members of the ensemble.

Young actors also need time to work on character development, so this is another activity to have students work on while not rehearsing.  They can draw how they want their character to look, create a backstory, and write or chart how they interact with the other characters.  Discuss what they drew and pull from it.  Use the children’s imaginations to your advantage, letting them have as much input as possible into the creative process.  Give them guidance, of course, but let them be creative.  You’ll be amazed at the characters that will come out of them.

Another way young actors can be involved in the creative process is to have them actually help build costumes, make props, paint the set, etc.  Have a craft area set up where kids can make their own props and costume pieces.  A wand, a crown, some wings, some ears.  The kids will love that their costume is truly their own.  And with the guidance of another adult or older teen, the kids can help build or paint the set.  Giving kids artistic input and hands-on involvement helps them be far more invested in the process, which will spill over into their work onstage, as well.

Making sure each cast member feels they are contributing to each rehearsal process, even if they are not onstage at the moment, will keep their excitement and enthusiasm high.  Remember that when working with children, nothing will be perfect.  Of course you want the show to be as good as possible, yet your ultimate goal should not be a perfect show.  Rather, help your young actors learn and grow, each contributing their best to put on the best show possible...  for them.  And let yourself have fun, too.  Your attitude — or stress level — is contagious, so it’s important that you believe in them and also enjoy the process!