Teacher Background

In this resource, Sam Marsden will introduce you to “actioning,” with an Action Toolbox of action verbs arranged in lists to help inspire your students and bring scenes to life. You can use this Action Toolbox for scripted work, improvisations, or analysis of a text.  

Sam uses two example scripts to walk you through how to apply actions to text. She's included a fun improvisation circle game called “I’m Sorry I….” to get your group energized and connected while playing with the technique of actioning. She's also included 30 improv cards designed to spark your students’ creativity. Each card provides a location and two characters, with an action assigned to each character to play. The locations range from real-world settings to STEM-inspired environments, to showbiz settings, to make-believe worlds. Sam finishes this resource by sharing some practical tips on how to teach actioning.

Recommended Student Materials

Editable Documents: Before sharing these resources with students, you must first save them to your Google account by opening them, and selecting “Make a copy” from the File menu. Check out Sharing Tips or Instructional Benefits when implementing Google Docs and Google Slides with students.

• Actions for Intention  
• Elemental Actions 
• Alphabetical Master Action List
• “Forgotten Lunch” (without actions)
• “Forgotten Lunch” (with actions)
• “The Lion and the Mouse” (without actions)
• “The Lion and the Mouse” (with actions)
• Charm/Blame Improv
• Improv Cards With a Location and Actions to Inspire Students

About Drama Games with Sam Marsden

Sam Marsden is a seasoned drama educator and author who has spent her career helping students discover the power of performance. With years of classroom experience, she now writes practical guides on how to weave drama into everyday learning, making lessons more engaging, expressive, and meaningful across subjects. You can explore more of Sam's books and works on her website.

Introduction

An action is represented by an active verb that describes what a character is trying to do to another to get what they want. Actioning is applying an action word to a character’s intention. For example, if Diego wants his friend Alex to share his homework notes, he may first persuade Alex. “Persuade” is the action word that Diego plays. If that doesn’t work, Diego can change his action and guilt Alex instead. The action is the choice that guides how the line is delivered and what the character does to try to affect the other person. Actioning helps the actors to connect with their characters’ intentions and play each moment with purpose. It is a great tool to inject energy into a scene that falls flat. I’ve seen a lift a scene in my drama class many times. Giving students actions to play gives them purpose and permission.  

Actioning is most often used in working with scripts and is often applied line by line, or occasionally word by word. It encourages actors to make choices. However, I have experimented over the years and found actioning to be a fantastic tool for inspiring improvisations. Encouraging students to experiment with actions can bring a performance to life. Actioning can keep actors in the moment, the scene, and the relationship or dynamic between characters. It requires specificity, which many agree nurtures nuance, new ideas, and creativity. 

Actioning is useful not only for the drama class, but for the English class. Discussing what actions characters are playing can be a great springboard into conversations about character traits, motivation, and power plays in literature. 

Action Toolbox  

In this toolbox, you’ll find a wide range of action words to use in scripted work, in improvisations, or when exploring texts in literature. An action word is an active verb—something you can do physically or mentally—and it’s always in the present tense. You can apply the action to a single word, a line, or a chunk of text in a script. It can also inspire an improvisation or be used to explore dialogue and character intention in literature. There’s more guidance later in this resource on how to use actions in both scripted and improvised work.  

To make this toolbox as accessible and flexible as possible, I’ve divided it into three parts:  

• Actions for Intention – To help students clarify character goals.  
• Elemental Actions – To spark creative, sense-based choices. 
• Alphabetical Master Action List – To offer freedom and options.  

Applying Actions to Text

Applying actions to text is one of the best-known and most widely used ways to explore actioning. To introduce this idea, you may begin by walking through a short script with actions already applied (see the “Forgotten Lunch” (with actions). Each line includes a suggested action for the actor to play. After discussing this version with your class, you can give students the same script but without any actions (see “Forgotten Lunch” (without actions). Ask students to annotate the script with their own choices. There’s no single, “right” way to interpret a line. Different actors will make different choices, and that’s part of what makes this such a valuable exercise. 

You can print the Alphabetical Master Action List and hand it out alongside the blank script to give students a wide range of options to explore. You may like to allow students access to a dictionary so that they can find out the meaning of each action.   

Example Scripts: 

• “Forgotten Lunch” (with actions)
• “Forgotten Lunch” (without actions)

This technique can be applied to any text: 

• Student-written scenes 
• Teacher-written scenes 
• Shows you’re working on  
• Excerpts from shows or scenes  
• Excerpts from literature, especially for studying dialogue 

Next, let’s take an excerpt from one of Aesop’s fables, The Lion and the Mouse, and look at how giving students an element can inspire their actioning choices. You can give the actor playing the lion the element of fire, which changes to water when the lion decides not to eat the mouse. For the mouse, you can give the actor the element of air, which changes to earth when the mouse sets the lion free from the net. 

• “The Lion and the Mouse” (with actions)
• “The Lion and the Mouse” (without actions)

Actioning is a powerful way to bring texts to life and explore character motivation. This activity encourages empathy, interpretation, and creative thinking. It is a great tool for both drama and English classrooms. 

Applying Actions to Improvisation Work 

Here’s a popular improvisation game from my book 100 Acting Exercises for 8–18 Year Olds, which I’ve adapted here to play with actioning. This is a fast-paced improvisation exercise, perfect for a group warm-up for ages 8+.

Skills: Listening, spontaneity, imagination, and improvisation 
Participants: A group of five or more
Time: 10–15 minutes 
You’ll need: Enough space for students to sit in a circle

How to Play “I’m Sorry I.…”

Have the group sit in a circle. One person—let’s call her Rania—will start by standing up. Rania will approach someone else in the circle—let’s call her Maya—and apologize for something. Rania may be very sorry because she has lost Maya’s pet dog, smashed Maya’s phone, or cast an irreversible spell on Maya’s brother. Maya can react in any way she likes. She can be sad, angry, or maybe even pleased about the accident. What’s vital here is for Maya to go along with whatever Rania apologizes for. Once the short improvisation comes to an end, Maya will pick someone else in the circle and approach them to apologize for something. For example, Maya may go over to Vadim and apologize for getting mud on his coat. If Vadim asks to pass, that’s okay, and Maya can pick someone else. Improvisation must never be forced on anyone. Chances are that if Vadim is given a few weeks just to watch, he will eventually choose to join an improvisation exercise. Maya can move on to someone else and strike up an improvisation by apologizing to them for something.

Tip

It can be fun for students to play this game in character. Explain to them that they can each be any character they like: a schoolteacher, princess, astronaut, etc. Once they think of a character, it will likely give them inspiration for something to be sorry for. 

The aim

To encourage students to improvise with spontaneity and not block one another. In improvisation, not blocking means accepting and building on each other’s ideas instead of rejecting or shutting them down. The only exception to this principle is if someone presents an idea that is violent in terms of speech or action, then we can block it!  

Adding actions to “I’m Sorry I….” 

I recommend playing “I’m Sorry I....” a few times before adding in actioning. Once students know the game and are comfortable with it, you can ask them each to play an action in their improvisation. For example, a person saying sorry could play “comfort,” and the person receiving the apology could play “inflame.” You can ask students to choose their own actions, or you can give them each one to play. Use this example, Charm/Blame Improv where one person is apologizing using the action of “charm” and the other person is apologizing using the action of “blame.” 

Before starting, reassure students that not every line must deliver the action. It’s simply there to shape the scene. 

Use these Improv Cards With a Location and Actions to Inspire Students to spark action-driven improvisations. Ask students to work in pairs and give each student a different card. Allow them 10 minutes to develop their scenes based on the prompts. Then, invite each pair to share their improvisation with the class, but never force anyone to perform if they don’t want to.

Teaching Tips for Actioning 

Actioning can bring so much life and character exploration to the classroom, but it can also take students a little while to grasp. Here are some tips for facilitating this technique as smoothly as possible: 

• Create a safe, playful space where exploration is valued over perfection. Remind students that getting the action “wrong” isn’t failure—it’s part of the learning process. 
• Encourage students to take risks. Mistakes are welcome in drama work. Remind students that if you’re not failing sometimes, you may not be pushing yourself hard enough. 
• Normalize unfamiliarity. Try and erase any shame students may feel for not knowing what words mean. If a student needs to look something up or misinterprets a word, that’s absolutely okay. 
• Encourage full commitment. Once students have chosen their actions, support them in going for the scenes wholeheartedly. It’s about the energy and intention, not getting it “right.” 
• Promote nonjudgment. Every actor brings their own unique interpretation to a scene. What matters is their commitment, not whether it matches your or others’ ideas of the text. 
• Respect individual comfort levels. Never put a student on the spot or force participation. If someone isn’t ready to perform, let them observe until they feel safe to join in. 
• Establish and maintain clear safety boundaries: 
• No physical contact during improvisation work. 
• No violent words or actions. 
• No impersonations of classmates or use of each other’s real names in improv work. 
• Foster kindness. Have a zero-tolerance policy for bullying, including microaggressions like eye rolls and dismissive looks. Encourage students to give kind, constructive feedback. 
• Be accessible. Stay available to explain unfamiliar words and offer clarification. Make time for questions—confusion can create anxiety and limit creative freedom. 
• Use dictionaries. Provide printed or digital dictionaries so that students can explore and expand their vocabularies independently. 
• Model flexibility. If a student struggles with actioning or finds it too rigid, allow them to set it aside. Actioning is a tool, not a rule. 
• Let discoveries come from within. Try not to take too top-down an approach. Instead of instructing a student on how to play a line, ask open-ended questions and let their interpretation emerge. 
• Celebrate interpretation. Reinforce that there is no single, correct way to play a line. Different choices are what make theater exciting and alive.

Criticisms of Actioning

When introducing this technique to students, I think it’s important to highlight its strengths and limitations. Although I find actioning to be a very useful tool, my main criticism is that it can sometimes make relationships feel too transactional. Not every conversation involves someone trying to get something from another or them manipulate another, directly or indirectly. I’ve sometimes found myself saying, “But my character isn’t trying to do anything to the other character,” and I have been met with, “Of course they are!” But I think that represents a limited view of human relationships. I’ve found that actioning tends to be most useful for manipulative and controlling characters, as they are often the ones actively performing actions on others. Some actors reject actioning and prefer to work from a place of emotional nuance rather than one of planned tactics. For some, actioning disconnects them from organic emotional responses, but for others, it lights them up!  

Some actors and directors love actioning; others hate it. I’ve found it helpful to teach actioning as a tool while making space for students to set it aside if it isn’t useful for them. For more blocked or less intuitive students, actioning can help them break out of a rut. It can give reluctant students permission to let go and go for a performance fully, without inhibition. Whether your students love, hate, or feel neutral about actioning, it’s a valuable tool to introduce so that they can make up their own minds. 

Roundup

Actioning was created as a tool for actors to bring a text to life in the rehearsal room, but it is also a great way to help drama and English students engage with text and character. By exploring what a character is trying to do, students can begin to make clearer, bolder choices. They learn to connect intention with expression. Beyond performance, this approach builds key life skills such as the following: 

• Emotional intelligence, as students tune into what can motivate people and how emotions shift. 
• Empathy, as they explore multiple perspectives and discover how characters can be interpreted in different ways. 
• Communication skills, as they practice expressing thoughts, feelings, and objectives clearly with one another. 
• Creative risk-taking, as they experiment with new vocabulary, different interpretations, and a wide range of other dramatic choices. 

Whether you’re using actioning in script work, improvisations, or literature analysis, this technique encourages students to stay curious, widen their vocabularies, make creative choices, and develop their own interpretations.  

Some students may connect with actioning; others may find that it doesn’t suit their processes—and that’s okay. Part of what makes drama education powerful is giving people tools to try, reflect on, and adapt to fit their unique ways of working. Let this be one of many tools in your students’ creative toolbox.