Here’s a fun warm up activity for training storytellers, starting a guild meeting or anywhere you might be working with performers of any type.

Supplies:
Each student should have one item to read. This can be any item of text. Examples would be: a previous class handout with plenty of text, the text to a story, a “Little Golden Book” or even some article(s) from the newspaper.

How to play:
1. Divide the students into groups of three or allow them to self-select. Students may sit or stand for this game.

2. Ask each group to decide who is “A,” “B” and “C.”

3. Provide the following instructions:
Starting with the person who is “A,” you are going to read some selection of the (text) you have in front of you. You will begin to read it in your normal voice. After a moment, I will call out an emotion, feeling or attitude such as happy, sad, tired, sleepy. When I do so, you start to read the (text) with that emotion to your group of three. For example, if I say “sad,” you would read the piece with weeping and sobbing. Feel free to be silly with your emotional reading. After a moment, I will say “switch” and a new feeling or emotion. When I do so, “A” stops reading and “B” begins with the new emotion or feeling I have called out. This will continue around the A to B to C to A and so forth until the end of the game.

4. Start the game, allowing a minute or two for each emotion to be practiced. Some suggested emotions or feelings would be: happy, sad, tired, aching, bored, surprised, cold, hot, afraid, unsure, giddy, satisfied, hungry, joy, worry, sympathy, shyness, condescending. Feel free to add other emotions, feelings or attitudes as you see fit.