Theatre Unlabeled
Our Work
What we teach
The foundation of our work here at Theatre Unlabeled is the system of actor training developed by Viola Spolin. Keep reading to find out more about Viola Spolin and her philosophy.
About Viola Spolin
VIOLA SPOLIN
November 7, 1906 to November 22, 1994
Viola Spolin was an actress, educator, director, author, and the creator of theater games, a system of actor training that uses games she devised to organically teach the formal rules of the theater. Her groundbreaking book Improvisation for the Theater transformed American theater and revolutionized the way acting is taught. Originally published in 1963 by Northwestern University Press, it remains an essential theater text.
She developed her methods while working as a drama supervisor in Chicago for the WPA, at her Young Actors Company in Hollywood, and as Director of Workshops at The Second City. Her son, director Paul Sills, who is credited with popularizing her work, used her theater games when he co-founded Compass, Playwrights Theatre Club, The Second City, and created Story Theater.
The modern improvisational theater movement is a direct outgrowth of Spolin’s methods, discoveries, and writings.
By Aretha Sills, from violaspolin.org
Spolin's Philosophy
Viola Spolin’s improvisational Theater Games are a complete system of actor training. Each game or exercise has a focus, a problem to be solved by the players as a group, so that lessons are learned through play (experience). She wrote: "Everyone can act. Everyone can improvise. Anyone who wishes to can play in the theater and learn to become stageworthy. We learn through experience and experiencing, and no one teaches anyone anything. . . . ‘Talent’ or ‘lack of talent’ has little to do with it.”
Through focused attention, a player can be in the present time, their intuition activated and their whole body alert and ready to play—physical states that benefit theatrical communication and liberate the individual to explore their environment and make new discoveries. In moments of pure spontaneity, cultural and psychological conditioning fall away, allowing for the player to explore the unknown. In theater games, space objects replace props and sets, which opens the possibility for theatrical transformation.
Spolin called transformation the heart of improvisation. She believed cultural and familial authorities often use approval and disapproval to control others, limiting the individual’s capacity for experience. Her evaluation methods instead involve the whole group in a non-judgmental process that lets students learn for themselves. Spolin called her teaching methods non-authoritarian, non-verbal, and non-psychological.
By Aretha Sills, from violaspolin.org
If You are curious about why we are called Theatre Unlabeled,
READ THIS ARTICLE.
Here are some examples of the games being played:
"How often do we do this with people? We don’t see them for who they are, but for how we label what they are in relation to us.
That will color and limit the possible relationships you can have with them. When we see our idea of what we see, it is a partial illusion.
When we see without labels, we truly see.
We develop an artist’s eye."
-Gary Schwartz, Spolin Games Online