Alyssa's Top Five Favorite Theatre Games

In theatre class you learn many games, and some tend to be more enjoyable than others. Games help everyone loosen up, get energized, and find applications for what they have learned. What follows are my personal top five theatre games to play.

Bibbity Bibitty Bop

When playing this game, you have the players form a circle while the host stays within. They will walk up to one of the players and say “Bibbity Bibbity Bop”. If the player says “bop” before the phrase has been completed, they stay in. If not, they are out. However, if the host simply says “Bop”, the player cannot say “Bop” or else they are removed from the game. This may seem simple, but this game requires a great deal of concentration to get through!

Survivor

In this game, around five players are chosen to be the actors in a scene. They must play out that scene, and when finished the audience will vote on an actor to be removed. The remaining actors must remember their roles and one of the actors must play both themselves and the removed actor. When the second run through of the same scene is finished, the audience will vote again. The remaining actors play themselves and one or two of the actors play the missing two roles. Again, the audience votes to remove an actor and those remaining play their roles and one, two, or three actors play the remaining. This continues until only one remains, who must play all the roles left.

The Interview One

This game requires three people to play: one is the interviewer and two are the interviewee. The two people playing the interviewee are playing one person, together, and they must say everything at the same time. The interviewer asks them questions (such as, “How was your childhood growing up?”), and they must answer at the same time (“I lived in a house with two parents and a dog.”) and so on. This one is a fun challenge to play!

Half-English Half-Gibberish

Here, the actors all play a normal scene until the designated person (not the one within the scene) claps. At the sound of the clap, all the players switch into gibberish, continuing with the scene. Another clap, and they go back to English. This game continues until the scene is finished.

Lean, Sit, Stand

This one has an incredibly simple, yet difficult to execute premise. Within this game, you have three players. The scene can be anything they desire. One person must be sitting, while one person is standing, and the third must be leaning. If the person that was sitting suddenly stands, the actors must react quickly and one of them must sit down. This continues throughout the duration of the scene, with all three actors rotating between sitting, standing, and leaning.