Viola Spolin
Viola Spolin | |
---|---|
Improvisational theater | |
Spouse | Wilmer Silverberg |
Children | Paul Sills, William H. Sills |
Relatives | Neva Sills, Aretha Sills, Rachel Sills, David Sills, Polly Sills, Jennifer Sills, Jonathan Sills (grandchildren) |
Viola Spolin (November 7, 1906 — November 22, 1994) was an American theatre academic, educator and acting coach. She is considered an important innovator in 20th century American theater for creating directorial techniques to help actors to be focused in the present moment and to find choices improvisationally, as if in real life.
Spolin influenced the first generation of improvisational actors at the Second City in Chicago in the mid- to late 1950s, through her son, Paul Sills. He was the founding director of the Compass Players which led to the formation of the Second City. He used her techniques in the training and direction of the company, which enabled them to create satirical improvisational theater about current social & political issues. Spolin also taught workshops for Second City actors, as well as for the general public. Paul Sills and the success of the Second City were largely responsible for the popularization of improvisational theater, which became best known as a comedy form called "improv." Many actors, writers and directors grew out of that school of theater and had formative experiences performing and being trained at the Second City. Many notable theater, television and film professionals were influenced by Spolin and Sills.
Spolin developed acting exercises or "games" that unleashed creativity, adapting focused "play" to unlock the individual's capacity for creative self-expression. Viola Spolin's use of recreational games in theater came from her background with the Works Progress Administration during the Great Depression where she studied with Neva Boyd starting in 1924.[2] Spolin also taught classes at Jane Addams' Hull House[3] in Chicago.
She authored a number of texts on improvisation. Her first and most famous was Improvisation for the Theater, published by Northwestern University Press. This book has become a classic resource for improvisational actors, directors and teachers. It has been published in three editions in 1963, 1983 and 1999.[4]
Early work
Viola Spolin initially trained to be a settlement worker (from 1924 to 1927), studying at
According to Spolin, Boyd's teachings provided "an extraordinary training in the use of games, story-telling, folk dance and dramatics as tools for stimulating creative expression in both children and adults, through self discovery and personal experiencing."
Spolin acknowledged she was influenced by
Birth of American improv
In 1946, Spolin founded the Young Actors Company in Hollywood. Children six years of age and older were trained, through the medium of the still developing Theater Games system, to perform in productions.[10] This company continued until 1955. Spolin returned to Chicago in 1955 to direct for the Playwright's Theater Club and, subsequently, to conduct games workshops with the Compass Players, the country's first professional improvisational acting company. The Compass Players made theater history in America. It began in the backroom of a bar near the University of Chicago campus in the summer of 1955 and out of this group was born a new form: improvisational theater. They are said to have created a radically new kind of comedy. "They did not plan to be funny or to change the course of comedy", writes Janet Coleman. "But that is what happened."[11]
From 1960 to 1965, still in Chicago, she worked with her son Paul Sills as workshop director for the Second City Company and continued to teach and develop Theater Games theory and practice. As an outgrowth of this work, she published Improvisation for the Theater,[4][6] consisting of approximately 220 games and exercises. It has become a classic reference text for teachers of acting, as well as for educators in other fields.
In the early-1960s Viola Spolin took on an assistant and protégé,
In 1965, with Sills and others, Spolin co-founded the Game Theater in
Later years
In 1970 and 1971 Spolin served as special
Spolin's games
Spolin's Theater Games transform the teaching of acting skills and techniques into exercises that are in game forms. Each Theater Game is structured to give the players a specific focus or technical problem to keep in mind during the game, like keeping your eye on the ball in a ball game. These simple, operational structures teach complicated theater conventions and techniques. By playing the game the players learn the skill, keeping their attention on the focus of the game, rather than falling into self-consciousness or trying to think up good ideas, from an intellectual source. The intention of giving the actor something on which to focus is to help them to be in the present moment, like a mantra in meditation. In this playful, active state the player gets flashes of intuitive, inspired choices that come spontaneously. The focus of the game keeps the mind busy in the moment of creating or playing, rather than being in the mind pre-planning, comparing or judging their choices in the improvisation. The exercises are, as one critic has written, "structures designed to almost fool spontaneity into being."
Spolin believed that every person can learn to act and express creatively. In the beginning of her book Improvisation for the Theater, she wrote:
Everyone can act. Everyone can improvise. Anyone who wishes to can play in the theater and learn to become 'stage-worthy.'
We learn through experience and experiencing, and no one teaches anyone anything. This is as true for the infant moving from kicking and crawling to walking as it is for the scientist with his equations.
If the environment permits it, anyone can learn whatever he chooses to learn; and if the individual permits it, the environment will teach him everything it has to teach. 'Talent' or 'lack of talent' have little to do with it.
Spolin's work with children
Viola Spolin began working with children early in her career. Aside from her work with The Parent's School, Spolin used her Theatre Games as a way to help develop creative confidence in troubled kids as well as for child actors and kids who just wanted to have fun improvising. Spolin was associated for many years with Jane Addams Hull House as well as other locations where she and her assistant teachers taught improv workshops to children.
Spolin also directed numerous shows for children, including a production at Playwights in the mid-1950s. Soon after the Second City opened its doors in 1959, Spolin started putting up shows for children on the weekends. During Spolin children's shows the kids in the audience were invited up onto the stage to play Theatre Games with the cast. In the mid-1960s, Spolin handed the children's show (along with her improv classes) over to her protégé and assistant, Josephine Forsberg,[13][16] who renamed it The Children's Theatre of the Second City and continued to produce and direct it until 1997, using Viola Spolin's audience participation improv games after every performance.[16]
Bibliography
- Improvisation for the Theater[4] (1963, 1st ed.; 1983, 2nd ed.; 1999, 3rd ed.) (Text of Improvisation for the Theater)
- Theater Games for the Classroom: A Teacher's Handbook[2] (1986) (Text of Theater Games for the Classroom)
- Theater Games for the Lone Actor (2001)
- Theater Games for Rehearsal: A Director's Handbook, Viola Spolin (author), Carol Bleakley Sills (editor), Rob Reiner (foreword)[20] (1985, 1st ed.; 2010, 2nd ed.) (Text of Theater Games for Rehearsal)
- Theater Game File[21] (1985)[22]
References
- ^ D.E. Moffit. "Viola Spolin Biography". Archived from the original on May 9, 2008. Retrieved 2009-04-19.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-8101-4004-2.
- ISBN 0253003490. Retrieved 2014-06-20.
- ^ ISBN 0-8101-4008-X.
- ^ "BIOGRAPHY". violaspolin. Viola Spolin Estate. Retrieved 1 December 2016.
- ^ a b The Hollywood Reporter Comedy Special Report. January 26, 1988.
- ^ The Spolin Center
- ISBN 9781567506778.
- ^ Elliot, Chad. "Video of Viola Spolin: Author of Improvisation for the Theater". Seattle Improv Classes. Retrieved 14 December 2016.
- ^ "New Mercury Players, Hollywood Center Theatre, undated". Viola Spolin Papers (MS155). finding aids: Archival and Manuscript Collections, Northwestern University. Retrieved 8 June 2022.
findingaids.library.northwestern.edu
- ^ Janet Coleman, The Compass: The Improvisational Theatre that Revolutionized American Comedy, xi. (Chicago: Centennial Publications of the University of Chicago Press, 1991)Janet Coleman, "The Compass: The Improvisational Theatre that Revolutionized American Comedy," xi. (Chicago: Centennial Publications of the University of Chicago Press, 1991)
- ^ a b "Improv pioneer Josephine Forsberg dies at 90". Wbez.org. 2011-10-05. Retrieved 2014-06-20.
- ^ a b "Josephine-Forsberg,-90,-taught-stars-improv - Chicago Sun-Times". Suntimes.com. Retrieved 2014-06-20.
- ^ a b "The Power of Play: Improvisation As A Catalyst". Improvisationnews.com. Retrieved 2014-06-20.
- ^ Kogan, Rick (1992-12-14). "Articles about Viola Spolin - Chicago Tribune". Articles.chicagotribune.com. Retrieved 2014-06-20.
- ^ a b c "About Us - News & Events - The Second City - 50 Years of Funny". The Second City. 2011-10-05. Retrieved 2014-06-20.
- ^ "The Roots of American Improvisation". Improvisationnews.com. Retrieved 2014-06-20.
- ^ Alex in Wonderland, Chicago Sun Times, March 1, 1971|http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19710301/REVIEWS/103010301/1023
- ISBN 0-8101-4002-0.
- ISBN 0-8101-4002-0.
- ^ Viola Spolin (1989). Theater Game File. Northwestern University Press.
- ^ Spolin, Viola (1985). Theater Games for Rehearsal: A Director's Handbook. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press. p. 4.
- ^ Viola Spolin (2002). Improvisationstechniken für Pädagogik, Therapie und Theater. Junfermann.
- ^ Spolin, Viola (2002). Improvisationstechniken für Pädagogik, Therapie und Theater. Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany: Junfermann.
External links
- Spolin Interview on YouTube
- The Spolin Center
- The Second City - With significant Flash Animations
- Audio of NPR Spolin program - with a link to the GiveandTake yahoo group
- Viola Spolin theatre ephemera, 1940s-1994 (bulk 1980s-1994), held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts