How to use the WHOWHATWHEREHOW cards

DRAMA/THEATRE

COMPETITION

Divide the group into two teams. Choose a category: WHO, WHAT, WHERE or HOW. First it’s team A's turn. Two players of team A look at the cue and act out the word together, without speaking or making sounds. Once team A guesses the word correctly, the next two players of team A will take a turn. Count the number of correct answers after three minutes you. Can team B improve this score?

LIVING STATUE

A group of players acts out a word in a still image. The rest of the players guess which word is being acted out.

CHARACTER BUS

Set up chairs to resemble a bus. One player is chosen to be the bus driver. The other players pick a HOW from one of the cards; each player a different one. The bus drives through town and stops to pick up passengers. At each stop a player, in role with their chosen HOW, gets on the bus. As soon as the new passenger is on the bus, the driver and the other passengers all adopt this character’s HOW, and their dialogue and physicality should reflect this.

WITH PREPARATION

Divide the players into groups of three or four. Give each group a word card or four Image cards. The groups prepare a play in which they use all four concepts. Ask the audience afterwards which WHO, WHAT, WHERE and HOW they saw.

MURDER GAME

Choose four players. A murder has taken place and the four players are going to pass on information about the murder to each other. Without using words or sounds, they pass on the murderer, the murder location and the character trait/feeling of the murderer to each other. Players B, C and D leave the room. Give a word card to player A. Player A reads the cues and remembers them. Player B comes back into the room, looks at what player A is portraying and copies her or him at the same time. Player B does not guess out loud, but remembers the cues as he or she understood them. Now player A sits down and player C comes back. Player B conveys the cues to player C, without any help from player A. Player C imitates B. Player D now comes from the hallway and imitates what player C is trying to convey. In the end, can player D name the WHO, the WHERE and the HOW?

CHANGE THE HOW

Divide the players into pairs and give each pair two cards. Tell them that they are going to prepare a scene in which in the beginning they will feel the HOW of one card and at the end they will feel the HOW of the other card. For example, they make a scene in which they both feel sad at first and angry at the end. The players must also come up with a reason why their HOW changes. The groups all prepare their scene. After each scene the audience hopefully can tell what the reason for the change was.

The players could of course also each take two different HOW’s.

WALKING

Use a room where you have plenty of space and determine a starting and ending line. The players now walk from one line to the other, always in a different way. You draw a different card each time and tell them the HOW: which emotion/charactertrait do they have. When you’re angry, you walk in a different way than when you’re happy. To make it more difficult, you could also indicate the intensity of the HOW: 1 stands for a very small amount and 10 for the most extreme.

IMPROVISATION

A WHO, WHAT, WHERE or HOW is an excellent starting point for any improvisation. To make it more difficult you can give a combination of two, three or even four cues.

ACTING ON LOCATION

A player is shown a WHERE card. This player shows one action you could do at this location. The other players may join one by one as soon as they think they know where the player is. If someone guesses wrong, they have to go back to their seat until they figure it out.

CROSS

Stick a large cross on the floor, for example with painters tape. This creates four spaces on the playing area. Assign a different HOW to each corner. The players improvise a scene, in which they have to behave appropriate to the HOW of the corner they’re in. The HOWs change, but the scene continues. Of course this is also possible with only 2 or 3 corners.

HIDING IN THE EMPTY SPACE

Divide the group into groups of four players and give each group a different WHERE. The groups may prepare this assignment. When all groups have finished preparing, the groups take turns showing where they are. Two players first 'hide' in the empty space and show where they are by their actions. They do not hide in the first place in their WHERE, but try out a number of hiding spaces. For example, if they are in the kitchen, they will first hide in the refrigerator, then in the stove, and finally they hide in a trash can. The seekers visit all of the places where the hiders were. The multitude of actions allows the audience to guess which WHERE each group had.

JABBERTALK

Player A is going to speech to the rest of the group, in jabbertalk. The way player A has to jabbertalking is decided by a HOW of one of the cards. It is up to the group to guess which HOW the speaker used.

WRITING & DRAWING

UNIQUE

Divide the group into groups of four. Read out loud a WHO, WHAT, WHERE or HOW. Everyone now has 1 minute to write down words that have to do with this WHO, WHAT, WHERE or HOW. Afterwards they compare their word lists. All unique words earn a point.

PICTIONARY

Divide the group into two teams. First choose a category (WHO, WHAT, WHERE or HOW) and have a player from team A draw what is in that category on the first card. Once the group guesses it correctly it’s player 2’s turn with the next card. Continue this until 3 minutes have passed and count the correctly guessed cards. Now it's time for team B.

COMBINATION DRAWING

This idea is just for WHOWHATWHEREHOW with words. Give everyone a card. The assignment is to make a drawing that combines all four concepts of one card.

DIALOGUE

Divide the group into pairs and give every pair a sheet of paper. Give the duo’s a word card or four Image cards and tell them that they have to write a dialogue in which all four cues have to be used. The dialogue has to be at least eight lines. Once the dialogues are finished, they can be read aloud, but also - with some preparation - played in a scene for the rest of the group.

CREATIVE WRITING

Give everyone a word card or four Image cards and assign them to write a story with all four concepts. You might want to give the writers a theme, like 'horror story', 'my future' or 'farewell letter'.