Warm-ups

What Are You Doing?

One player mimes an activity while naming a completely different one, which the next player must then mime.

Warm-ups · 4 or more players · 6–8 minutes

How to run it

Player A begins miming an activity — brushing their teeth.
Player B asks, "what are you doing?"
A answers with a different activity entirely: "climbing a rope."
A steps out; B begins miming climbing a rope.
Player C asks B the same question, and the pattern continues around the group.

What it teaches

Splitting attention between body and mouth, and abandoning your own idea the instant somebody hands you another.

Coaching notes

Push the pace. Players who hesitate are searching for a funny answer, and the exercise works better when the answers are mundane.

Where it usually goes wrong. Naming activities that cannot be mimed, which quietly turns it into a word game.

Related reading: base reality.

See it played

We do not link individual videos we have not watched end to end, so this is a search rather than a recommendation: What Are You Doing? on YouTube. Quality varies enormously — prefer recordings from working theatres over tutorial channels.