Julius Caesar • 2013 - Chicago Shakespeare Theater

Warm-up from the top of the body down
(approximately seven to ten minutes)
✪ gentle movement helps increase circulation, flexibility, and body readiness
✪ increases physical and spatial awareness
CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
(a) Begin by doing head-rolls to the left and to the right, about four times each way, very slowly. Then do a series of
shoulder rolls to the back and to the front, again very slowly, and emphasizing a full range of motion.
(b) Stretch each arm toward the ceiling alternately, and try to pull all the way through the rib cage, repeating
this motion six to eight times.
(c) Next, with particular care to keep knees slightly bent, twist from the waist in each direction, trying to look
behind. Again, repeat six to eight times.
(d) From a standing position, starting with the top of the head, roll down with relaxed neck and arms until the
body is hanging from the waist. Ask the students to shake things around, making sure their bodies are
relaxed. From this position, bend at the knees, putting both hands on the floor. Stretch back up to hanging.
Repeat this action about four times. Then roll back up—starting from the base of the spine, stack each
vertebra until the head is the last thing to come up.
(e) Repeat the deep breathing from the beginning of the warm-up. Ask the students to bring their feet together,
bend their knees, and keeping their knees together ask the students to rotate their knees in a circle
parallel to the ground six to eight times. Repeat in the other direction. Return to standing.
(f) Pick up the right foot, rotate it inward six to eight times, and then do the same with the left foot. Repeat
with outward rotation of the foot. Take a few moments and shake out the entire body.
VOCAL WARM-UPS
Your vocal warm-up should follow your physical warm-up directly
(This entire process should take about seven minutes.)
✪ helps connect physicality to vocality
✪ begins to open the imagination to performance possibilities
(a) Ask students to gently massage and pat the muscles of their faces. This will help wake up the facial muscles.
(b) Ask students to stick their tongues out as far as possible—repeat this with the tongue pointing up, down,
and to each side. (This exercise will seem strange, but can be made silly and fun, while accomplishing the
necessary vocal warm-up. When students see you going through these exercises with commitment, that’s
often all they need to draw them in.) Repeat this exercise once or twice.
(c) Ask students to put their lips gently together and blow air through them, creating a “raspberry.”
(d) Next, hum, quietly, loudly, and across the entire vocal range. The vocal instrument loves to hum. Explore all
the resonating spaces in the body, by moving the sound around. Humming helps to lubricate.
(e) Create the vowel sounds, overemphasizing each shape with the face —A, E, I, O, and U—with no break.
(f) Choose two or three tongue-twisters—there are some listed below. Again overemphasizing the shape
of each sound with the lips, tongue, jaw, and facial muscles, begin slowly with each tongue-twister, and
gradually speed up, repeating until the speed is such that the enunciation is lost.
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