A Pen, a Paper
Sitting in a ring, a pen is passed to the left with a fixed exchange — 'here you are', 'what is it?', 'a pen', 'thank you' — but each new passer has forgotten what it is and mus…
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The largest open Swedish bank of drama exercises found so far: 549 övningar across 44 categories, each with the site's own counts — Samarbete (58), Bejaka (51), Spontanitet (50), Uppvärmning (43), Koncentration (33), Gruppskapande (21), Förtroende (5), Lära känna varandra (3) and on through mime, status work, storytelling and teatersport. Every exercise is a public page with full instructions in Swedish, often with variations; a free membership exists for comments and a handful of protected posts. The domain is the IDN dramaövningar.se; the URL recorded here is its punycode form, which is what a browser actually resolves.
xn--dramavningar-8ib.se/ — Martin Wiss (personuppgiftsansvarig per the site's datariktlinjer; the exercises are authored under 'Martin')
License: None stated (checked 2026-08-31: no licence, copyright line or reuse terms found on exercise pages, the category pages or the datariktlinjer; the site names Martin Wiss with a published contact address)
Source link checked 1 Sep 2026 — reachable
Sitting in a ring, a pen is passed to the left with a fixed exchange — 'here you are', 'what is it?', 'a pen', 'thank you' — but each new passer has forgotten what it is and mus…
Two people play a five-minute scene in which one is active — establishing who they are, where they are and why — while the other establishes nothing new and simply affirms every…
The foundational listening exercise in its many dressings: in pairs, one person speaks about something real while the listener gives full attention — no interrupting, no advisin…
The audience suggests an adjective — warm, strong, sad, lost — and every actor in the coming scene tries to embody that quality or state as fully as they can. A variation gives…
Whatever one person claims, the other denies — and then the first has to affirm the denial while keeping their original claim alive. 'I'm getting married!' 'No you're not, you'r…
One person says the first letter of the alphabet to anyone else in the circle, who says the next letter to somebody else, and so on all the way to the end. Then try to get throu…
One person is 'the accident' and may only move along an invisible straight line dividing the room. Everyone else tries to cross from one side to the other. Get run over and you…
The group sits in a circle of chairs with one person standing in the middle, who calls out something they might have in common with others — 'anyone who has a dog'. Everyone it…
Practising the creation of painfully awkward situations: how do you draw the uncomfortable atmosphere out in time and space? Practise both putting yourself into awkward situatio…
One person goes up and acts as a part of something that moves — a machine, an organism, a process. As soon as anyone else works out what whole that part belongs to, they join as…
Everyone stands in a ring around one person, who turns to somebody, points, and says 'bibberi bibberi bo'; if the person pointed at cannot get their 'bo' in first, they swap. Th…
The group stands in a circle passing a fish around. Saying 'big fish' with the hands held close together passes it on; saying 'small fish' with the hands held far apart reverses…
Teams of three or four are given a country and a year by the audience, take up to thirty seconds to confer, and then perform that country's invented Eurovision entry for that ye…
Standing in a ring, everyone takes turns saying a word that associates to the one their neighbour just said. On the leader's word everyone closes their eyes and keeps going; the…
Half the group stands scattered with their eyes closed. Music starts and the other half each go to someone and dance them around, while the dancer keeps their eyes shut througho…
One person is blindfolded in a room that has been deliberately strewn with obstacles, and the rest of the group has to talk them across it. The source records a fuller variant i…
Everyone closes their eyes and the group builds a single statue together — a 'glittering emerald', say. When it is finished and everyone has found a position, they open their ey…
Everyone moves around the room with their eyes closed, hands out, whispering 'potato' to whoever they meet. One person, chosen by a tap on the back, whispers 'bloody potato' ins…
An interrogation room: an interrogator, a suspect, sometimes a secretary — and Boris. Boris is a horrible figure, a monster or a giant, and is not played by any actor at all. He…
Everyone pairs up in a ring except one person, who stands alone. When that person calls a name, it is not the named person who must run to them — it is the named person's partne…
A five-step structure for building a scene fast: A defines a place by mime in under ten seconds; B adds a relationship and a status through a short action; A says out loud what…
Five players share a single chair, arranging themselves into one composed image, and each is given a number. The rest of the group circles them; when the leader calls a number,…
The circle turns a quarter left, closes up until everyone is touching, and sits down at once — each person landing on the knees of the person behind them, so the whole ring hold…
One at a time, each person steps into the middle of the circle with a big movement and a loud sound, then steps back — and everyone else steps in and copies both. Two variants c…
A teacher and a parent run into each other in town. You might imagine the parent's child has been truanting and the teacher had been meaning to get in touch and now has to raise…
The group tries to count to twenty out loud with no order agreed and nobody leading. Anyone may say the next number; if two people speak at once the count restarts at one. Getti…
Someone calls another player's name and immediately starts walking toward them. Before they arrive, that person must call a third name and set off themselves, freeing their plac…
In groups of three to five, moving together to music, participants are told to give and take impulses from each other — copying, or drawing inspiration from, one another's movem…
The stage is divided into four squares and each is assigned a feeling. For as long as a character stands in a square they carry that square's feeling, so moving changes what the…
A scene on a very serious subject — death, illness, addiction are the source's examples — and any player who laughs or giggles is replaced by another. A variation turns it aroun…
Four people hold a meeting on a question: numbers one and three are for it, two and four against, and each speaks for a few minutes in turn. Then the same meeting is run again w…
Standing in a circle, the group invents three creatures it may become — a cat that claws and miaows, a greaser slapping a double bass, the king greeting his people. On a signal,…
Everyone stands spread around the room and one person walks. When that person stops, somebody else has to start — exactly one person, immediately. There must be precisely one pe…
Four to six people play a scene in which one of them is left outside the group — not included in whatever the others are doing. The players have to sense who the group is exclud…
About five people step forward and the audience calls out a family theme — the monster family — and the group becomes that family photograph, frozen in a pose — the page's advic…
The group sings a song everyone knows — the source's example is Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star — and then sings it again in different feelings, deliberately exaggerated. Half the…
Pairs look at each other with one named feeling — compassion, say — with no movement, arms at their sides, just looking. Then a new partner and a new feeling, then a third. Afte…
Groups of about four sit in a row facing the same way. The first person mimes a feeling at about a quarter of its strength, the next takes it to half, the third to three quarter…
The audience suggests feelings — sad, angry, in love — and in the coming scene every actor tries to hold that feeling as fully as they can. A variation gives each actor their ow…
A genre and a title are called out — the horror film 'The Witness in the Attic' — and a group of three to five has to become the cinema poster for it, fast, then hold still. Nex…
Improvise a short performance of about five minutes with at least three people in it. One person sits out with paper and pen, watches particularly closely, analyses and takes no…
Two people. One points with a finger; the other follows the finger with their whole body — first on the spot, then around the room. Small movements of the finger can produce lar…
Wordless improvisation. Four people on a bench have to leave it for the same reason.
Two people improvise in the middle of a circle until anyone watching calls 'freeze'. The caller steps in, takes over one performer's exact physical position, and starts a comple…
Each of two improvisers is secretly given something they must get the other to do during the scene, neither knowing what the other is working toward — the instructions are given…
It is the receiver's birthday and the others shower them with imaginary gifts, fast, one after another; the receiver meets every gift — thoughtful or absurd — with delight and t…
Two people on stage and one of them does not speak. The other has to build, through their own dialogue, the openings that let the silent one act and have something to do. It is…
One at a time, people cross the room while gradually transforming their character from one pole to another — good to evil, young to old, ashamed to proud, beautiful to ugly, afr…
Players mill about and greet whoever they meet, first plainly and then as a named relationship — a long-lost friend, someone you don't trust, an ex, someone with bad breath. Eac…
The group throws one ball around the circle in a fixed order until everyone knows who they receive from and who they throw to, then more balls are added until three are travelli…
Three people: a model who takes a sculptural position standing behind the clay so the clay cannot see them, the clay who is shapeless, and an artist who must form the clay into…
One person starts a simple repeatable movement with a sound. Others join one at a time, each physically connecting to somebody already in it and adding a movement that fits, unt…
Pairs stand facing each other around the room with their arms raised to form gates, and each pair hums continuously at its own pitch. One player, eyes closed and not humming, na…
Instructions are only to be followed when they begin with 'I say…'. 'I say sit down' means sit down; a bare 'sit down' means stay put, and anyone who moves is out. The game itse…
One person becomes a tree; two more join the scene as an apple, a squirrel — or the tree's self-doubt — and the tree chooses which stays to seed the next scene. A quick improv g…
Sitting in a ring, the group builds a proverb one word at a time. When somebody judges it complete they say 'full stop', and everyone presses their palms together fingertip to f…
One person is interviewed as some kind of expert while another provides simultaneous interpretation into an entirely improvised sign language. The expert has to remember not to…
A scene is played, and beside it — or in it — stand the players' angels and devils: alter egos who say aloud what each character is 'really' thinking or up to as the scene runs.
Two groups on opposite sides of the room take turns insulting each other. It may end with the groups face to face shouting, and hopefully everyone enjoying it. The source sugges…
Two groups each write a list of insults. Then pairs play a plain shop scene — buying and selling, nothing else — and run it again adding an insult to the end of every line, and…
You introduce yourself — name, where you come from, dream destination, favourite dessert — with every single word forced to start with one chosen letter. The page's own example,…
Three people. One acts; the other two face away. One of those says 'freeze', comes in, works out what is going on and joins it. The third then says 'freeze', comes in, and at th…
One person sits blindfolded on a chair with a set of keys underneath it while the circle tries to steal them without being heard. If the Keeper hears someone they point at where…
Walk and talk to each other, some of you keeping the head completely still while speaking, others letting it move and tilt. For some people the still head is impossible; others…
Ask people to say something kind to their neighbour, and then something unkind. The source's whole commentary is one sentence: the wrong effect is often achieved.
The group lies down in a circle with each person's head on someone else's stomach. One person says 'Ha!' — seriously. The next says 'Ha, ha!' The next 'Ha, ha, ha!' The moment a…
Half the group stand scattered across the floor as lighthouses; the other half line up at one end with their eyes closed as boats and have to cross to the far side. The lighthou…
Everyone sits in silence and listens to the surroundings for about five minutes. Afterwards they compare what they heard — the ventilation, people outside, distant cars, the win…
One character plays a scene and all the other actors are the objects in it — and the objects can talk. Drink a beer and the beer starts talking to you; step into a house and the…
The circle looks at the floor. On 'look up' everyone raises their eyes and looks directly at one other person. Two people who find themselves looking at each other both scream,…
A scene is playing. At some point the audience calls 'meanwhile…' and a fresh set of players starts a completely new scene. When 'meanwhile' is called again the first scene resu…
In pairs facing each other, one person takes on a feeling and speaks gibberish so that the feeling comes through; the other answers in gibberish, mirroring the feeling as exactl…
The plainest name exercise there is — everyone says their name around the ring — with three escalations the page supplies: say it twice with a three-second gap in which everyone…
In pairs, planning something together — a party, a picnic — in three passes. First each idea is demolished and replaced, as creatively as possible. Then each idea is accepted, b…
Tag in pairs, played in cartoon spirit — Tom and Jerry, Bugs Bunny. The one being chased fends off the chaser with mimed obstacles: felling a large tree in their path, painting…
Two scenes with entirely different casts, not necessarily in the same place or period. The rule is that the second must raise the stakes of the first without anyone from the fir…
Everyone walks the room in different directions, asked to think of the floor as a raft that tips if too many people are on one side, so the group keeps redistributing itself. If…
Three to seven players, and as the name says, one actor is surplus — one player has to be excluded from the group. Naturally everyone wants to belong and not be the one left out…
Several actors on stage appear to be talking, but one person off to the side speaks every line for all of them. The silent actors have to fit their bodies and movements to words…
Two pairs on stage, and each pair plays a single character between them — the two actors in a pair take turns saying one word at a time. So a two-hander is played by four people…
In pairs, a story built by taking turns to add one word each. The source notes that doing it as a whole ring is usually harder than doing it in twos — and offers writing a lette…
In pairs, people interview each other on three questions — your name, your favourite ice cream, what you would be doing if you weren't here — and then each introduces the other…
Each group is given a thing made of several parts — a bicycle, a lawnmower, a tent — and each person a private slip naming which part they are: saddle, front wheel, rear wheel,…
A group is given one minute to prepare a performance. The brief can add conditions — that it be about a particular theme, run at least so many minutes, or contain at least so ma…
The group establishes a steady beat and one person tells a story with one word on each beat, so the words come at an even pace with no room to search for them. Variations: the c…
Groups of about four: the first goes in and takes a position, the second follows, and so on. In the rolling version — in a group of nine, five are always on stage — as one perso…
The group runs in a ring, and anyone running may at any moment reverse direction — at which point everyone else must reverse too. The source is unusually direct about when not t…
The whole group walks a large ring in step while the leader calls numbers from one to four, each meaning an action the whole group performs together on the beat — one is a clap,…
Players mill about with eyes closed while one of them, tapped on the shoulder beforehand, kills by squeezing a forearm. The victim screams, opens their eyes and is out. Players…
Half the group stand in a ring facing outward as unfinished sculptures; the other half each take one and modify it, then rotate one place to the left and continue what the previ…
A master calls in a servant to discuss something trivial — dust on the bookshelf. What the master does not know is that a great many disasters have happened today, so when she s…
One person catches another's eye across the circle and the two prepare to clap; they must clap at exactly the same moment. That person then catches a third person's eye, and so…
In pairs. One person invents a story or talks about a subject; the other tries to say exactly the same words at exactly the same time. Copying the timing means having to anticip…
Players line both sides of a run. One person sprints its length with their eyes closed while the others keep them straight and catch them at the far end. The source notes how ha…
Two actors improvise a scene and may speak but may not make any sounds. Beside the stage, two other people supply the sound effects — one for each actor — so a character steppin…
Everyone imagines they are carrying a spoonful of water and balances it as they walk the room. If that is hard, the source suggests trying it with a real spoon first, to feel th…
A question with two opposite answers is mapped onto a line across the room, ideally graded with chairs or numbers, and everyone stands where their view is best expressed. People…
Everyone draws a playing card and wears it on their forehead without seeing it, then plays a scene. Everybody can read everyone else's status but not their own, and you learn wh…
A cocktail party where half the room plays high status and half plays low, then they swap. The source supplies the physical vocabulary for both — toes turned in, head tilted, ha…
Four people decide what the photograph shows. Two have high status and two low. Then they make a slow transformation and swap status, without leaving the photograph.
Scenes built on four movements of status: both players lower theirs, both raise theirs, one raises while the other lowers gradually, and status switches abruptly mid-scene. The…
Two people play a pair with assigned characters — child and adult, thief and police, doctor and patient, boss and employee, groupie and star, devil and angel — one high status a…
The group walks the space responding to four called instructions, then the meanings are reversed — 'stop' means go, 'clap' means jump — and the calls come faster. Some are usual…
Sitting or standing in a ring, the group builds a story one sentence at a time — but each sentence has to begin with the next letter of the alphabet. The source reminds you not…
Each actor is assigned a famous person, and the scene begins with them together in bed. Only the actors know who they are; the audience and the other actors have to guess. The s…
Round the circle, each player turns to their left-hand neighbour and says something absurd about them — a giant mushroom is growing out of your right shoulder. The neighbour has…
Four people: two act in gibberish and two are their subtitlers, one each. After every line the subtitler runs out in front, makes quotation marks with their fingers, and says in…
Half the group are clay with their eyes closed; the other half sculpt them into one connected sculpture, moving them not by pushing but by holding an open hand against a body pa…
Everyone holds up ten fingers and takes turns making a yes/no statement about themselves — 'I have a cat', 'I have never stolen anything'. Anyone who cannot answer yes drops a f…
At regular intervals the improvised performance is stopped and the audience is asked whether they want it to go on: 'thanks, or continue?' If they want more they say continue; i…
Two people improvise a scene about somebody who is not there yet but is on their way. Over at least six to fourteen lines their dialogue has to establish where they are and, abo…
Wordless throughout: one person begins doing something on stage, and as soon as anyone else works out what the activity is they join in and take part in it. Joining is the proof…
Two people, one standing close behind the other with their arms through the front person's armpits, so that the back person's arms appear to be the front person's — who hides th…
The audience is asked to name a personal problem. A scene then plays out to music in which somebody unburdens themselves about that problem to a bartender in a pub — sung, impro…
A job interview in which the manager has been privately told to be perfectly polite while, without noticing, tearing the candidate's CV into strips, crumpling them and throwing…
Two people play a scene and two more disrupt it. Once the scene is well established, one or two troublemakers come on and keep trying to knock the players out of their flow with…
One expert played by two people, saying one word each in turn, answering an interviewer's or the audience's questions on a difficult subject. As with the panel, the expert says…
A technique rather than a game: when somebody says something astonishing, look at them with a blank expression, then look quickly away, then snap back and gape. The realisation…
A family scene: the audience picks an activity they are doing together — barbecuing, playing cards, decorating the Christmas tree — and the actors establish the activity, the ch…
Everyone moves around shaking hands, and at each handshake you say your own name and swap names with the person you greeted — so the names travel round the group. When your own…
Four chairs arranged as a car and four actors. One is a hitchhiker who brings a feeling into the car, and it infects the other passengers. After a while the driver gets out for…
One person sits on a chair. The others approach one after another saying things like 'Look! Totte has come back!' or 'Ulf, have we forgotten anyone for your 50th birthday next m…
The group throws an imaginary ball around the circle, and once the tempo is up the leader calls out how the ball changes — heavier, lighter, faster, smaller, bigger, higher — an…
An expert is invited to address a gathering but speaks only gibberish. An interpreter tells the audience what the expert is saying, and asks the expert questions when needed.
The group stands in a square formation — four rows of four, say — all facing the leader, and everyone jumps four small jumps in time. Then only the front row jumps three, and on…
Everyone takes a ranked jungle character — Jane, Tarzan, the gorilla, the lizard, the amoeba — and stands in rank order, each with a sound and a movement. You perform your own a…
One person stands in the middle as the king and begins to move; everyone else supports whatever they do. Lift a leg and someone is immediately underneath the foot. The king clim…
The group arranges itself in a line in a given order without speaking — first the obvious, tallest to shortest, then orders nobody can see: who was born furthest away, who has t…
In pairs, one player holds a still shape while the other, eyes closed, explores it by touch and then tries to become the same shape themselves.
The room becomes a world map — the leader points out north, south, east and west — and people stand where they were born. The page's own guidance is the substance: the host coun…
Two lines face each other as if for a tug of war, and the front person of each line plays one half of a worn-out marriage: one cooked a special dinner that went cold hours ago,…
One person makes a movement, optionally with a sound, and the next tries to reproduce it exactly. Inevitably small changes creep in, and the instruction is to keep them: each pe…
One person keeps proposing things and the other blocks every one of them. That is the whole exercise, and the point is not the scene — it is to feel what blocking does, and to h…
The actors stand in a row as a panel of experts and answer the audience's questions — but each may only say one word at a time, so the sentence assembles itself along the line.…
Two siblings: A lives in B's flat and keeps opening B's post. B comes home, finds a letter already opened, and the scene runs first as denial. Then it is replayed with A admitti…
One person walks on and says what they are — 'I am a tree' — and anyone may come in and complete the image by being something else that belongs in it. When everyone is in, the p…
'You don't know what I've got in my pocket!' The other answers with something — a ticket to Kiruna, say — and you must agree you have it and supply the reason it is there: you a…
Two puppets and two puppeteers. The puppets may speak but not move; the puppeteers move them by physically shifting, turning and leading their bodies, and should keep them movin…
Chairs are set out as a bus. One person leaves the room and the rest agree on something odd or wrong about them — the source's examples run from an unzipped fly to looking like…
A solo improvised monologue directed at a teddy bear, which of course never answers. You can accuse the bear of anything. The source suggests playing a dramatic scene — some kin…
A square marked on the floor. When you step into it you have to do something — a sound, a movement — and you may associate to whatever you happen to see. You are not allowed to…
Two groups wait at opposite sides of a wide crossing with traffic lights, a third group watching. On somebody's silent impulse everyone begins to walk and they meet in the middl…
Four rows of four hold hands to form a washing machine. Three people are outside it: the dirty laundry, the detergent, and the one doing the washing. The detergent chases the la…
Three roles in one conversation: someone who brings information, someone who says yes to everything, and someone who blocks everything. The source gives it in six words and leav…
Walk in through a door as if you had come through the wrong one by mistake. How do you react, how do you leave? Is the reaction natural or is the entrance contrived? The source'…
Everyone stands in a circle with a hand raised. An imaginary green ball is thrown to somebody, who says 'green ball', catches it, says 'green ball' and throws it to somebody who…
A topic is chosen — countries, say — and the first person points at somebody and says Ghana. That person points at somebody else and says another country. The rule that makes it…
One at a time, people walk from one wall to the opposite one with their eyes closed, trying to stop as close to the wall as they can. Someone always spots so that nobody walks s…
Two teams improvise a tug of war with no rope. What matters is not who wins — there is no real contest — but whether it looks like one: is the rope taut or slack, is the distanc…
Player A makes a physical shape. Player B looks at the gesture for three seconds and then 'motivates' it if they can — playing, in about five seconds, enough for the audience to…
Four words of dialogue — 'Hi.' 'Hi.' 'Waited long?' 'Ages.' — played four times: both high status, both low, A high and B low, B high and A low. The same words, four different s…
Three people, three invisible lines across the stage — back, middle, front — and three rounds of telling. In the first, each tells a short first-person monologue that sets up an…
Someone calls out 'let's...' and an action; the whole group answers 'yes, let's!' and does it, until somebody else calls the next one. Nothing is refused and nothing is discusse…
An impulse is passed round the circle by pointing and calling: zip to the left, zap to the right, boing to send it straight back at whoever aimed at you. Hesitating, or saying a…
record status: checked · added 2026-08-31