Theatrical Improvisation as Social Group Work at Hull House

• In Event: Culturally Responsive and Democratic Arts Education

Abstract

Through an interpretive historical analysis, this paper synthesizes Viola Spolin’s approach to teaching dramatic improvisation at Jane Addams’s Hull House in her Creative Recreational Theater Program between 1938-1945, where she developed the “theater games” (Spolin, 1999) currently used by many educators in K-12 schools and other learning environments. Finding indicate that Spolin taught improvisation through anti-authoritarian, democratic methods and a curricular approach anchored around the use of cooperative games intended to foster recreational, pleasurable experiences among a group. Her ultimate goals included involving more members of the immediate Chicago and U.S. community in her form of participatory theater-making. These findings suggest new pedagogical and scholarly possibilities for contemporary historical and educational researchers seeking to further explore group-oriented, collectivistic pedagogical possibilities.

Author

• Laura Carter-Stone, University of Kentucky