Never Say "No", Just "Yes, And..."

Students in the Arts Track participated in their first acting exercises this morning, led by Ms. Palmer (a former theater teacher) and Quynn Cashman  (a student at NIC and former acting student of Ms. Palmer).  They learned the importance of respect, listening, focus, and giving to team members, in addition to vocal and physical warm up exercises.

Ms. Palmer started the day by talking about the rules of theater, including respecting one's self, one's teammates, and one's environment.  She demonstrated the different areas of the stage and led them through a series of focus exercises.  Students then learned warm ups for both body and voice before playing improvisation games to put it all together. The improv games allowed students to practice the cardinal rule of acting: never say "NO", just "Yes, and...". It was a fun morning with a lot of laughter and energy!

Students play "The Party Game" where the "host" of the party has to guess what characters the guests are portraying.  Nona was an excellent hostess, and her party guests were quite entertaining!

Quynn "drives" the taxicab as she picks up various hitchhikers.  This game teaches focus and improv as the other people in the car have to pick up on the traits of the hitchhiker.

Students practice listening and focus skills with the old party game "Telephone".  There were some hilarious results!