Basics

1. Close your eyes.
2. Your feet are shoulder width apart. In your mind’s eye, see that your feet are
directly beneath your hip bones, and your hip bones are directly beneath your
shoulders.
3. Your weight is evenly distributed between your feet. Rock slightly forward
and backward and from side to side to test this.
4. Your knees are slightly bent.
5. Your pelvis is slightly tipped under.
6. Your spine is like a long vertical rope with knots (the vertebrae). It hangs
from the first vertebrae of your neck straight down to the last vertebrae above
your tailbone.
7. Your head balances on the top of your neck. In your mind’s eye your head is
suspended by a helium balloon, attached by a string to the place on the top of
your head where your hair swirls around.
8. Your shoulders are relaxed back and down. Roll them around in their joints
a few times backward to check this.
9. Your arms are loose at your sides.
10. Your hands are relaxed, and all your fingers are loose.
11. All the muscles in your face are relaxed. Your jaw is slack. Your mouth is
relaxed and open.
12. You are breathing through your mouth.
13. Your stomach is loose, fat and flabby. In your mind’s eye, see the air come in
cool over your tongue, go all the way down the inside of your torso into your fat,
flabby relaxed stomach and come back up and out warm as you exhale.
14. Take a deep, relaxing inhalation and let out a deep, relaxing exhalation

The Vocal Check
The vocal check gives you a beginning point in the vocal warm-up and physical relaxation. It’s a sentence that you say at the start and will repeat at the end.

A standard sentence for a vocal check is ―Good morning, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, my name is Tien Le and I will now present my case.

You can should vary the text of your vocal check from day to day.

Steps to the Vocal Check
1. Get into the basic stance, keeping your eyes closed.
2. Inhale, through your mouth into your fat, flabby, relaxed stomach.
3. Exhale through your mouth and as you do so, say your vocal check.
4. Make a mental note of how relaxed your voice sounded, where it was placed,
and how rich it was.
5. Slowly inhale and exhale.

The centre of every performance is your body. It’s your instrument. Just as a musician practices, you have to practice.

Do these exercises before every performance. For best results do them every morning.

Physical Warm up

Stretch : Wake up your muscles. Reach your arms overhead as high as you can, roll down to touch your toes, and wind your wrists and ankles in circles. This will improve your range of motion and give you greater kinetic awareness, which will enhance your performance.

Look far to the left and right, then up and down, and move your shoulders around.

Shake : Shake it out. Wiggle and vibrate different parts of your body. Jump up and down

Stretch your face : The “small face, big face” technique gives your facial muscles a literal workout. Expand your face with your mouth wide open, like a lion yawning. Then scrunch your face into its tightest configuration, like you’ve just tasted the sourest lemon imaginable.

Vocal Warmup

Open your thoracic cavity. Stretch the upper torso, arch the left arm up and over, reaching above your head toward your right side. Breathe slowly and deeply, and feel the floating ribs expand and contract as you breathe in and out. Change sides and repeat. Now bring your arms out palms up, with your shoulders down, and feel the floating ribs expand and contract with each breath cycle (purse your lips for respiratory drive).

Sharp exhales
Take a deep breath in and then exhale sharply and quickly on “p” (unvoiced “puh”) 50 times; feel those muscles get ready for action. If you can’t make it to 50 on a single breath, take a second long inhale when you hit 25 sharp exhales

Elocution
Next, warm up your filter — the top of the larynx, pharynx, mouth, and nose that controls vocal tone, timbre, and texture. Exaggerate the diphthongs, or the vowel changes, and pitches in “how now brown cow?”. Try this first with wide oral openings and then in your intraoral space.

How now, brown cow?
Unique New Yotk
Red leather, yellow leather
Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper
She sells sea shells by the sea shore

Repeat these phrases numerous times, changing your pitch throughout the repetitions.
Repeat these phrases numerous times changing the tempo throughout the repetitions
Repeat those phrases numerous times with your teeth closed tightly.

Lip flutters
Lip flutters (“raspberries”), rolling the “r,”

Fake yawns
Keeping your mouth closed, pretend that you’re yawning to engage and loosen the jaw. This will help your jaw drop before the performance, which gives you access to a wider range of sound.

Humming is your friend. Humming is an amazing warmup, because it can help you set your pitch and teach you a thing or two about how that pitch is generated. When you’re practicing pitch control, hum a basic tone with one hand on your chest and one or two fingers on your larynx. As you hum, go lower. You should feel the resonance lower in your chest, and you should also feel your larynx (or voice box) fall lower in your throat. Continue to hum while taking your pitch up. The resonance will rise in your chest, and your larynx will rise toward your chin. Next, try this technique while speaking or singing.

Practice makes perfect

ACTING 102

Massage your face: Give yourself a thorough facial massage using circular motions to loosen muscles around the forehead, eyes, mouth, and neck.

Gibberish: There are countless ways to play with the text you’re working with in a show or audition, from singing to pantomiming. The best way, however, is by throwing meaning out the window; delivering dialogue in pure gibberish can be a great exercise to wrap your mind, emotions, and physicality around the material. They say you’re “feeling it in your bones” for a reason. Gibberish loosens up the actor’s relationship with the text and puts them directly in touch with the emotion behind it.

Speed runs: Practice your monologue or dialogue at a normal speed. Then repeat it at twice the speed, then even faster. How fast can you go? This technique is especially helpful for memorizing lines before an audition
.
Meditation: Try grounding yourself with deep breathing exercises, stilling your mind and body so your attention is solely on the here and now. Many meditation practices involve counting out each inhale and exhale, or even incorporating imaginative exercises to reduce overthinking. Engaging the diaphragm to maximize use of the voice is a great warmup on its own, but combining it with the intense mental focus of meditation is a surefire way to focus yourself.
As you become more experienced and confident as a performer, you’ll discover which of these acting exercises are best suited to you and your body. Experiment to find out which ones work for you.