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Background reading · The Arts

The drama toolkit: techniques every actor uses

The elements of drama and the techniques you can use to build characters and scenes, from freeze frames to hot-seating.

Drama is people pretending to be other people, in a made-up situation, for an audience. It sounds simple, but actors use a toolkit of techniques to make that pretending believable and clear.

The elements of drama

  • Role: the character you play, with their own wants and worries. - Body: posture, gesture and how you move. - Voice: volume, pace, pitch and pauses. - Space: where you stand and how close you are to others. - Time: when and how long things happen, including slow motion. - Tension: the feeling that something is about to happen. - Symbol: an object, colour, sound or movement that stands for a bigger idea.

    • Techniques for building scenes

  • Freeze frame (tableau): a still picture made with bodies, like pausing a film. - Thought tracking: a frozen character speaks their private thoughts aloud. - Slow motion: stretching a key moment so the audience notices it. - Narration: someone tells the audience what is happening or what happened before. - Chorus: a group who move or speak together as one voice.

    • Techniques for building characters

  • Role on the wall: an outline of the character with outside facts and inside feelings. - Hot-seating: answering questions while staying in role. - Status: showing how much power a character has through body, eyes, voice and space. - Objective: the one thing your character wants in each scene.

    • Devised or scripted?

    Scripted drama starts with a playwright's words. Devised drama starts with an idea, a question or a real issue, and the group builds the play together by improvising, keeping the best bits and shaping them. Many New Zealand theatre companies devise work, often from interviews and real stories.

    Making it clear

    The audience can only understand what they can see and hear. Face out, speak to the back of the room, hold freezes completely still, and make sure every scene shows what the characters want.

    Sources and further reading

    Written for Kōkiri Learn students in our own words. Check facts against the sources.

    Used in: Stage It: Drama and Devised Theatre