Blog-O-Ween! Just do it!

Getting your students interested and involved in class can be difficult. If you're anything like me, you are always incredibly into the theory of what you're teaching and you want your class to be able to appreciate the beautiful mechanics of what they're about to do. While it's great to be so excited about how stuff works, sometimes it's better just to let it work before explaining it. In theatre and in improv it is important to let your students get to creating in a safe environment quickly before even thinking about sharing theory with them. So quit mucking around with vocabulary words in your theatre class and just do it!
I don't mean to impugn upon the honor of vocabulary lists and dramatic theory and all that, but I do mean to tell you that it's not half as important as reps. The theory exists to explain why things that we are already doing work and how to isolate those things. The vocabulary exists to describe things that we encounter in our work. Without practice, your students will have no real frame of reference for what any of that stuff is for. They will take notes and earnestly try to understand, but it will honestly do very few of them any good.

So instead of pre-ambling about the magic if and sense memory and a whole bunch of yes, and and discovery bs, just let your class get their hands dirty. Have them dive face-first into the mud of your work and let them get real gross looking. If they're succeeding, let them know at the end of the scene and ask them why they think that went well. If they nose out some acting theory (or improv theory) then you can expound on it a little so they can understand it. 

If they're struggling and the scene crashes, ask them how it felt. Ask them about key moments in the scene and guide them towards something that would make it easier. Give them some limited side-coaching if they come close so that you can push them over the edge into the pool of dramatic glory.

Cave men didn't theorize about fire before they discovered it. They saw fire, they made an explanation for it. Let your class of cave-men discover the fire before you offer them an explanation. Hell, let them take a couple shots with their own explanations. They might do better than you or Stanislavski!