Viola Spolin Improvisation Intensive with Aretha Sills

Workshop

From: Saturday, November 18 2017, 10:00 am
to: Sunday, November 19 2017, 4:00 pm

Viola Spolin’s improvisational theater games launched the modern American improvisational theater movement and changed the way drama is taught. Her work has influenced generations of actors and educators. She developed her methods while directing and teaching drama to children and recent immigrants in the 1930s and 40s and eventually created a complete actor-training curriculum, published in her groundbreaking book "Improvisation for the Theater” (Northwestern University Press, 1963). Each theater game has a focus, a problem to be solved by the group, so that the lessons are learned through play, resulting in true spontaneity of expression. Her son, director Paul Sills, used her work when co-founding the first improvisational theaters in the U.S., including Playwrights Theatre Club, The Compass, and The Second City in Chicago, as well as in the creation of the Story Theater form, with which he had a successful run on Broadway and on Canadian television. Alumni of Sills’ companies include Mike Nichols, Elaine May, Ed Asner, Alan Arkin, Barbara Harris, Valerie Harper, Alan Alda, Del Close, Severn Darden, and many other notable actors, improvisers, and directors.

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