# Warm-ups?!



## LightinGal (Jan 26, 2005)

Does anyone have any advice for vocal warm-ups.
im SMing. its not a musical, but we really need them to warm up their voices.
also.
what kind of warm ups do you do before the show.
i have a few. but this cast is older and "too-cool" to do a pre show shake down.
also, what kind of stuff do you do after rehearsals or shows.
i have been to some theatres where after an intense rehearsal they will do breathing exercises.
but once again. this cast is too-cool for that!.
which makes me mad. cause i have all this stuff i wanted to do with them but they look at me like im an idiot when i try to do it!
grr...

and finally. what kind of pep-talk do you give them on opening night?

any help would be great!
i plan on using alot of this kind of stuff on my next show!
THANKS!


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## ccfan213 (Jan 26, 2005)

haha warm ups? i assume you r talking about actors, ours dont really warm up (that i know of) i am usually doing my own warm up before a show aka changing mic batteries, picking preshow music, eating pizza...
pep talks, the SMs and directors tell the stage crew and cast how hard they worked to prep for the show and how wonderful they will be, stuff like that i think, again... i miss this cause of my battery changing and pizza eating. as far as crew pep talks, once evereone's on their headset, "good luck, dont screw up"


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## Peter (Jan 26, 2005)

Our cast usualy does something in the chorus room (aka: changing room) before the show starts. It doesnt last more then 5 mins and we know the show is about to start when they go in there. (that's the time we run arround fixing everything they have been messing up (props etc...) before the show). I am not sure what they do in there, the last time a tech tried to go in there during that time he was never seen again. (ok, well, he was seen again, but was traumatized for life by the yelling at he got by the director). 

There is another thread arround about crew pep talks that might be worth looking up!


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## LightinGal (Jan 26, 2005)

haha...ya, i ment the actors.
in some theatres ive been to they do stuff like the hokey pokey. 
its really more to get everyone energized and pumped up for the show.
and it really works when you do it. thats why i really want to find something to do with my cast!
and i generally do like to get the crew in on it too. since its a small show and we only have board ops and a few backstage people. its easier and it brings everyone together.
i went to one theatre and they have everyone stand in a circle, hold hands and for about a minute, they take their time, and make eye contact with everyone. it makes everyone feel appreciated. and when done. they all take one huge breath in and one huge breath out. its a nice relaxer and brings everyone closer. thats for after rehearsals though. 
::sigh::...i love theatre people.... :wink:


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## SketchyCroftPpl (Jan 26, 2005)

Ha ha wow memories ... but yes I know one ... its called ziga mamma ... its really hard to do or even type in something like this but if you look it up your might be able to find something, I'll see if I can download it somewhere and then send it to you, its alot of fun though especially if you start bouncing around.

~Nick


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## tenor_singer (Jan 26, 2005)

I have them play some form of improv game talking quietly and then in time building to a louder voice. Some improv games I play:

The morphing prop (which is invisible and they have to pantomime it "morphing" into whatever they do a tiny skit about).

The prop circle where they take an every-day prop, like a feather duster, and act out a skit using the feather duster as an item that it really isn't. For example... one student can take it and act like he is doing a live guitar performance using the duster as his guitar. He can than pass it on to somebody else who uses it as something else.

The one word at a time story. You sit in a circle and I start you with a word like "Once". Then working around the circle you add a word, repeating what was said before you. It is good for memory and improv skills. 

There are some vowel/consonant drills that you can do where you have them inflect their voices on different vowel sounds. You have probably seen movies where actors do this behind the normal scene... the movie I am thinking of is... I can't think of its title... it is the one where Tim Allen gets slapped at work and he works out to beat up the bully who slapped him. His ex-wife's boyfriend in the play is an actor who consistently goes around performing various vocal exercises. Either way your troupe sounds like a bunch of fire sirens... lol.

Hope this helps.

Tenor.


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## SuperCow (Jan 26, 2005)

I personally refuse to participate in warm-ups. I stay in the booth during that time! But our cast does them.


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## RelativeMischief (Jan 26, 2005)

The only theatre shows I've worked with extensively were musicals. The actors would rewrite the words to popular song so that it was about the show. They would add a little bit every rehearsal and when opening night came the song was finsished and was the warm-up routine.

I forget what the show is called but the best song they did was for a musical that was a combination of old testament bible stories (no this wasn't christian school, but it was the musical that the drama teacher picked). They re-wrote "Bohemian Rhapsody" into "Hewbrewian Rhapsody". I'll see if I can get a copy of the lyrics from one of the guys if they still have it, it was a few years ago now 

The pep talk I usually gave the crew involved a basic rundown of who to talk to when things went wrong, that things were going to go wrong and to have fun fixing them. A perfect show is boring and it's not like we were getting paid to do any of it.

For aftershow wind-down we went to a little coffee shop just down the road from the school. We fit a cast and crew of about 30 people into a shop meant to seat 10-12  It was really fun (If you're going to do this, phone the shop before hand so they have extra staff of hand, it's a nice thing to do)

Cheers!
Aaron


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## Too_Tall (Jan 26, 2005)

Well, our cast does do warm-ups. Most are improv games to energize up to. There is one that will warm up their voice though, It is called "Who Put the Penny in the Gum Slot" It is like a song/chant. It goeas as follows: "Who put the penny in the gum slot? penny and the gum go round, round, round, round. I get the gum and you get the wrapper cause i put the penny in the gum slot." That is the way it starts and then to warm up other vord one person will say a letter like "T" then everyone says "Tho Tut the Tenny in the Tum Tot? Tenny and the Tum go Tound, Tound, Tound, Tound. I get the Tum and you get the Trapper cause i Tut the Tenny in the Tum Tot." This continues until the main person thinks everyone is warmed up. you can use other constinates instead of "T", i just thought it was the easiest


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## avkid (Jan 26, 2005)

Peter, you are a techie,bug the chorus room!


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## SketchyCroftPpl (Jan 26, 2005)

ha ha nice ... we have something like that ... if we really wanted to all we have to do is turn up a mic and we can hear w/e is going on. The diff though is that normally the tech joins in the warm ups after we have to be there for the show and we sing along and bob and all that and make it distracting and all the traditions at my school besides techie love is the entire cast of crew and actors and music people.

~Nick


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## ccfan213 (Jan 26, 2005)

haha i love listeninin to actors preshow with the PFL, stupid actors... they dont realize they are wearing mics...


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## SuperCow (Jan 26, 2005)

We always do that. we create an "Actor Mix" of what they say and just listen to them stabbing eachother in the back, bickering, and just being actors.


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## Peter (Jan 26, 2005)

LoL I dont really care what they do. As long as it works for them. I have a hunch that the director is yelling at them or scaring them or something like that (she is notorious for making people run away from the play in tears). we do have a mic input running from the chorus room to the tech booth (not really sure why....(we also have one in the band room)) but we dont have any feed back to the chorus room in order to give them any idea if their part is comming up.


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## SketchyCroftPpl (Jan 26, 2005)

What we dedided to do is that we normally have speaker outputs in the theatre so that new ones can be hooked up on stage, but since we have other speakers that we use and work fine, we got really long cable like 100 ft and we run that back into the room where they all sit and wait for their parts, we then hook up mids on flys and hang them right above the stage so that we can listen to everything that is going on on stage and we output the mics into the back room w/o them going into the theatre at all. We also have a vid camera that we hook up in the booth and run the picture from it onto a TV in the back room where they wait so they have both good sound of whats going on on stage and a picture of it.

~Nick


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## ccfan213 (Jan 26, 2005)

SuperCow said:


> We always do that. we create an "Actor Mix" of what they say and just listen to them stabbing eachother in the back, bickering, and just being actors.




haha, ive never heard anything more true!


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## SuperCow (Jan 27, 2005)

Well, the truth hurts! And then they call us losers for not joining in their little actor games; like that prop game, or the party quirks one, or insult your friends...


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## Lcook (Apr 8, 2006)

I don't warm up the actors myself (horrible at that kind of stuff...), but I do get one of my more experienced actors who knows what he/she is doing to lead one, while I take attendance and get my crew and the space ready. I doubt I would do it before every performance, but our director usually has some errand or another to run about the school. That leaves us with some dead time. And I hate wasted time. Lol.


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## Radman (Apr 9, 2006)

At school I am the only person able to get out of warm-ups, even people who may have wandered in to the theater are pulled in! I guess I must give off a pretty strong "no freaking way" vibe... It's fun to watch them though.


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## Capi (Apr 9, 2006)

I was an actor for a good while before I got smart and became a techie. Our director always warmed us up with stretches (kind of) to get us loose. We would rotate our heads, wrist, ankles, etc. For the musicals we would sing a couple of company songs from the show. For plays, we had a diff. director and he made us memorize "I am thy father's spirit. Doomed for a certain term to walk the night, and for the day confined to fast and fires, until the foul crimes done in my days of nature are burnt and purged away." From Hamlet. We had to say it very ar-tic-u-lated and sometimes he would make us say it with different emotions and things. I always enjoyed it.


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## Chris15 (Apr 10, 2006)

Ahh warm ups. Hate them. Steadfastly object to them. The drama teacher seems to like them. People running around in circles shouting out seems like a waste of time to me. Whats more, when he does it whilst the audience are arriving and in full view of the audience. I tend to think of that as being rather unprofessional.

In case it was not obvious, do not in any way associate or participate in them.


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## icebook1 (Apr 10, 2006)

We have "Circle." It starts about 30 minutes before curtain, and it's actually really fun for everybody, not just the actors. Yes, it's a lot of running around and cheering, but I think it does a good job at getting everyone pumped up for the show. 

During Circle, aside from the games, we "dedicate" each night of the show to three people, who the circle leaders choose. We also go around the circle and let each person make any sort of announcement that pertains to the show - i.e. see the mic managers for new batteries, cast party is here, etc. 

Our circle is held in the chorus room, that way the audience won't see any of it. This also helps to get all cast and crew out of the auditorium so we can open the house to the guests.


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## saxman0317 (Apr 10, 2006)

We just leave the warm ups to the actors, and do their mic checks afterwards. As a SD though, its very helpful for warmups, the voices are much clearer and constant.


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## nez (Apr 16, 2006)

as greg as mentioned the actors do do warm ups but they do them with out direction from us see we like to stay away from actors (we dont like them they are all morons )


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## TechWench (May 27, 2006)

icebook1 said:


> We have "Circle." It starts about 30 minutes before curtain, and it's actually really fun for everybody, not just the actors. Yes, it's a lot of running around and cheering, but I think it does a good job at getting everyone pumped up for the show.
> 
> During Circle, aside from the games, we "dedicate" each night of the show to three people, who the circle leaders choose. We also go around the circle and let each person make any sort of announcement that pertains to the show - i.e. see the mic managers for new batteries, cast party is here, etc.
> 
> Our circle is held in the chorus room, that way the audience won't see any of it. This also helps to get all cast and crew out of the auditorium so we can open the house to the guests.




What kind of games do you exactly play? I need something to get everyone pumped up and moving. Normally I have my cast shake down and maybe do 'the machine', which they usually enjoy. But those are old and not so fun anymore. I need something like a cheer.. maybe? Anyone? Bueller?


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## thorin81 (Jul 25, 2006)

*Not "Warm-ups?!" - It's Warm-ups!!!*

Ok, being an actor/technician-turned-teacher I know that warm-ups are *absolutely *neccessary. I also can say that an SM is very important in that process. I have my SM make sure that the actors are doing a good warm-up before each rehearsal AND before every performance. Since the SM has the responsibility of making sure that the show goes smoothly once it has opened, it is also to the SM's advantage to have his/her actors do good warm-ups. For that reason, the SM needs to have a good knowledge of warm-up techniques. 
So often, warm-ups are overlooked because people do not see the advantages that they give to an actor and the tech crew. The focus that is gained in a good warm up as well as the vocal variety helps both the actors and the technitians. A good sense of focus gives a production life and energy, and we all know that if a show does not have suffucuent energy we might as well stay in rehearsal all day long and never really DO the show. The focus also gets the actors in a mindset to accomplish the tasks in front of them for the show (aka - their JOB!!). SMs really do understand (or at least they had better) that actors need certain things in order to do their jobs effectively. Vocal and focus warm-ups are one of those things. 
The vocal warmup also helps one other technician significantly - the sound technician. The vocal variety that is gained by a GOOD vocal warm up makes a sound tech's job so much easier in that he won't have to work as hard to make the actors sound good (they do a lot of making mediocre sound sound good!). So every time you can have your actors do a good warm up DO IT. Whether it is in rehearsal or before a performance. If you don't believe me, try it for a couple of days - have your actors warm up and then rehearse/perform. You may not see immediate changes, but over time your job will become a lot easier. I promise!! 
PM me if you would like the list of warm ups that I use on a regualr basis and I will send it to your email. 

Hope this helps!!


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## Lcook (Aug 21, 2006)

I usually appoint a head actor of sorts to do a warm up considering before a show I'm usually running around getting the rest of the show in order. Whoever the actor is doesn't have much sway over the cast aside from warming them up and occasionally taking role for me when there's other stuff I need to attend to.


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