Product Description

Written especially for those who coach adolescent actors, this delightfully fresh workbook tells you the how, when, what and why of theatre games for young performers. Anyone working with young actors in schools or recreational centers will find this book exceptionally helpful. The basics of pantomime, improvisations, voice control, monologs and dialogs are all presented in game formats with exercises and worksheets for easy organization.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #126387 in Books
• Published on: 1985-06
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 160 pages

About the Author
Maria Novelly has been a teacher at the junior high through college levels and was a drama coach in Germany. A drama enthusiast who has participated in numerous plays, she currently lives and works in Stockport, England.

Customer Reviews

Indispensible
Maria Novelly's book was one of the first I purchased as a new drama teacher, and I'm very grateful to have had such an excellent resource so early on. Most of the the theater game compendiums I've read before or since have been hit-or-miss; I'd get use out of some suggested activities, but the others lacked depth or educational merit. Not so with Novelly's book--I've used every activity outlined in her book, and I continue to use them with great results. Children love these exercises--especially "Walking Through," "Imaginative Journeys," and pretty much everything in the Improv chapter--and importantly, they learn a lot about what it means to be a performer through their engagement with them. Highly recommended!

Fabulous for middle school
I love this book. I use something from it at least once a week in my classroom. It's wonderful for teaching the basics. Pantomime, expression, scene building, creative thinking... As other reviews state, it doesn't get into playing objectives, but you can cover that in other lessons and activities. That's simply not the scope of this book and that's fine by me. The activities are especially good for sixth graders. Seventh and Eighth, you'll have to play it by ear depending on your group. Most of mine are "too cool" for some of the activities, but a lot of the games are pretty adaptable for that age group if you get creative.

This book is Rubbish!
This book is not based on sound acting principles. It directs teachers to ask students to play emotions rather than objectives, thus breaking one of the cardinal rules of acting. Once I saw this, I refused to read on and immediately returned the book. It literally made me physically ill to read this book.