Acting Lessons For Children - article by MOREinfo-About.com

Acting Lessons for Children

In other cases children may be involved in acting lessons through a community program, such as a children's theatre, which may provide classes and even whole courses in acting and stage knowledge through summer programs, and even year-long classes in acting.

Acting lessons for children should use approaches which do not make the child feel self-conscious and simply become puppet-like in repetition of lines and actions. A child's talents...or even those of older young people, should be developed slowly and without pressure. Basic approaches to understanding body movements and vocal expression can be taught through simple exercises in acting classes...such as "walk across the stage as though you are angry" or "call for help because you are afraid".

Improvisational exercises used in acting lessons can help children learn to act and react without self-conscious, feeling genuine emotion and responding to a situation which they help create. Improvisation can be guided in several ways to teach acting: the instructor may describe a situation in the acting class, then chose two or three children to act out and develop the situation, each acting in his/her own way, Conversely, the instructor of the acting class may ask two or more children to create a situation and act it out.

Teaching vocal expression in acting lessons for children can include reading short poems, or bits of dialogue from plays written for children or young people. A short scene may be chosen by the acting instructor for children to perform before the class. As confidence and skills develop, the series of acting lessons may culminate in a short performance for parents and friends...an unthreatening experience which will introduce the children in the acting class to performing in public.

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