Tongue Twisters
Materials: None
Grade: K-12
Goal(s): To assist actors in vocal clarity necessary for proper diction.
1. Gather the actors together, facing you.
2. Through call and response, speak any combination of the following tongue twisters and have the actors speak them back to you.
Unique New York
Red Leather Yellow Leather
Toy Boat
A box of biscuits, a box of mixed biscuits and a biscuit mixer
Choose orange shoes
Eleven benevolent elephants
Minimal animal
Will you, William
Girl gargoyle, guy gargoyle
Suggested Variation(s): Shakespearean text can be used. See below.
Raising The Bar:
Let the actors lead the group recitation.
Work faster and faster without losing the clarity of the words.
Let individual actors voluntarily share their prowess.
Have the actors create new tongue twisters using words and phrases collected
from the Shakespeare.
Shakespearean Tongue Twisters:
The raging rocks
And shivering shocks
Shall break the locks
Of prison gates;
And Phibbus' car
Shall shine from far
And make and mar
The foolish Fates.
A Midsummer Night's Dream (Act 1, Scene 2)
Those be rubies, fairy favours,
In those freckles live their savours
A Midsummer Night's Dream (Act 2, Scene 1)
And now they never meet in grove or green,
By fountain clear, or spangled starlight sheen
A Midsummer Night's Dream (Act 2, Scene 1)
O dainty duck! O dear!
A Midsummer Night's Dream (Act 5, Scene 1)
Through the house give gathering light,
By the dead and drowsy fire:
Every elf and fairy sprite
Hop as light as bird from brier;
And this ditty, after me,
Sing, and dance it trippingly.
A Midsummer Night's Dream (Act 5, Scene 1)
When the hurlyburly's done,
When the battle's lost and won.
Macbeth (Act 1, Scene 1)
Fair is foul, and foul is fair:
Hover through the fog and filthy air.
Macbeth (Act 1, Scene 1)
A cherry lip, a bonny eye, a passing pleasing tongue
Richard III (Act 1, Scene 1)
Return to Stage 2
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