"A Real, Alive Participant Theater of America": Re-Feeling Viola Spolin's Theatrical Improvisation Pedagogy

• In Event: Methods, Histories, and Outcomes in Drama/Theater Education

Abstract

This paper investigates the original purposes of theatrical improvisation (“improv”) as created by Viola Spolin while teaching immigrant and Chicago-born adolescents at Hull House from 1939-1941. Through an interpretive historical analysis, the study finds that Spolin sought to promote shared affective experiences of energetic vitality for student improvisational “players.” Through an experiential, game-based pedagogical method, Spolin developed her adolescent players’ capacity to authentically feel and enact a wide variety of emotions—including those associated with tragedy— related to problems and scenarios encountered in fantastical and everyday environments, as elaborated here through the cases of two student- improvised plays. The paper concludes by considering the importance of greater attention to students’ affective experiences during improvisational activities in education research.

Author

• Laura Carter-Stone, University of Kentucky
  Presenting Author