MAR
11

Voila!  Virtual Vocal Warm-Ups

By Lavinia Roberts 

Lavinia Roberts is a theatre teacher and award-winning playwright who’s passionate about arts education and about creating zany, engaging, and meaningful plays for schools and community theaters. 

Online acting presents a whole different set of challenges from traditional stage acting.  Other aspects, however, remain the same, such as actors using proper diction and projecting their voices using diaphragmatic breathing.  When the show must go on online, so must the warm-up exercises!  Below are some voice warms-up that translate to Virtual Theatre.

Group greetings!
Have the actors greet each other but give them different character or animal voices with which to greet one other.  Examples include:  old friend, sibling, enemy, royalty, superstar, kitten, superhero, wizard, or robot.

Laugh like...
Have actors laugh in different ways.  Examples include:  Santa Claus, monkey, witch, robot, baby, ghost.  They can even laugh as themselves, especially if they have a distinctly unique laugh.  And don’t forget the fan-favorite, the classic evil laugh!  Aim to use a wide range of laughs, such as a deep giant’s laugh or high-pitched, squeaky mouse’s laugh.  Take suggestions from troupe members on other fun ways to laugh.

Incredi-pendous portmanteaus
A portmanteau is a “frankenword,” blending the sounds and combining the meaning of two words together.  Examples of portmanteaus include:  spork (from “spoon” and “fork”) or brunch (“breakfast” and “lunch”).

Have students create their own portmanteau to describe themselves, or the character they are playing, to the group.  For example:  My name is Lavinia and I am fant-acular, smar-telligent, and creativ-illy!  (Fantastic + spectacular, smart + intelligent, creative + silly!)

Students can also create portmanteaus based on how they feel that day.  Have students share their portmanteau with the class, speaking clearly and using different accents, emotions, or characters (like those listed in the examples above).

Soundscape shenanigans
Screenshare with actors a painting or photograph that depicts somewhere with distinct sounds.  Examples include:  a cityscape, forest, jungle, thunderstorm, pet store, orchestra concert hall, or blizzard.  Have students write a description of what they think the picture would sound like.  Their description should be detailed about how the sounds layer on top of one another.  Now challenge students to create a soundscape, realizing that with most video conferencing apps, only one microphone works at a time, meaning they can’t layer the sounds.  Instead, students might plan different sounds in a rapid sequence to build the soundscape together.  For example, a forest might have wind blowing, followed by birds singing, then a cricket chirping, followed by another bird song, then leaves rustling.

Same line, different way
Put a line of open-ended dialogue into the virtual chat box.  Have students take turns saying the same line, but with each actor using a different emotion.  Some examples include:  “What were you thinking?”  “Really...  do you mean that?”  “Is that you?”  “Are you sure?”

Terrific tongue twisters
Have fantastic, fabulous fun developing diction with tongue twisters.  You can screenshare or type into the chat box the tongue twisters you want the troupe to say or have them write their own.  There are endless activities you can do with tongue twisters.  Here are just a handful:

• Use old favorites like “She sells seashells by the seashore” or “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.”
• Create tongue twisters that are connected to the show your troupe is working on.
• Explain alliteration and assonance, and let the cast write their own tongue twisters.  They could even write a tongue twister about the character they are playing.
• Have students introduce themselves by creating a tongue twister that involves their name and three words that describe themselves that start with the first letter of their name.  An example would be “loquacious, lovely, and lively Lavinia.”
• Have them say their tongue twisters with different voices, emotions, or characters.  Speed and volume can also be varied.

Sound effects story
Tell a story while students create the sound effects throughout.  You might assign them in advance, let students choose which they want, or put a numbered list of their names in chat so everyone knows whose turn is next to make whatever sound is required.  The story can be about the production they are working on or based on everyday life.  Examples of possible sound effects are:  squeaky stairs, door slamming, animal noises, wind, a faucet dripping, footsteps, or traffic sounds.

One, two, three, repeat after me!  One, two, repeat after you! 
The facilitator will say “One, two, three, repeat after me!”  then do a sound and gesture that the troupe will repeat back.  The facilitator will then say “One, two, repeat after you,” followed by the name of the next facilitator.  The new facilitator will say “One, two, three, repeat after me,” and continue the game until everyone has had a chance to be the facilitator.

Name that tune
Have an actor hum a bar of their favorite song and see if other students can guess what it is.  A great way to emotionally check in with your actors is have them sing a bar of a song that is the “theme song” of their life right now.

Band together
Have six to eight students create a song together.  Again, this is challenging since only one mic can be on at a time.  But if each student is responsible for one “measure” of the song and they determine what order they’re going in, they can create a song while also practicing how to come in immediately after each other without cutting each other off.  Start by having each student come up with a repetitive sound that can go for four beats.  After the students have all done their sounds for each other, have them decide the sequence of the sounds to build a song.  Remind them that some sounds might be repeated more than once, or the entire song may be repeated.

Now, on your mark, get set...  warm up!  Stretch out those vocal cords, clear your throat, relax your muscles, take a deep breath, and warm up those voices!