Viola Spolin's Theatre Games

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The foundation of our work here at Theatre Unlabeled is the system of actor training developed by Viola Spolin, known as Theatre Games.  

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These games organically teach acting and improvisation by using a problem solving approach.  Each game has a focus/problem which must be solved by the players (such as becoming involved in an on-stage activity, communicating with the audience or fellow players, or portraying a character).  By focusing all their attention on the problem, players gain an intuitive understanding of acting.  As in a game, players are able to enter the present moment and "get out of their heads" allowing new discoveries to take place.  Players are able to spontaneously enter the unknown, free from old frames of reference and conditioning.

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"Experiencing is penetration into the environment, total organic involvement with it.  This means involvement on all levels, intellectual, physical, and intuitive."

 

- Viola Spolin, Improvisation for the Theatre.

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This method is also uniquely non-authoritarian.  Spolin believed that we all learn through direct experience, rather than through explanation, and that in fact the approval or disapproval of a teacher (or other "authority figure") is actually detrimental to the learning process.  Any attempt to control others (tell them the "right" or "wrong" way to act) limits their ability to experience and thereby learn.  

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Therefore, rather than relying on the opinion of the teacher, players take part in an evaluation after each game, where the audience players determine as a group whether the on-stage players solved the problem or not.  Thus evaluation ceases to be subjective ("I liked that" or "I hated that") and becomes objective ("they communicated who they were," "they solved the problem"), and since the evaluation involves the whole group players are freed from having to please the teacher.  In this method the teacher becomes a coach or guide, helping to direct the student's energies where they will be most useful, while allowing them to discover things for themselves.

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"The first step towards playing is feeling personal freedom.  Before we can play (experience) we must be free to do so. 

 

It is necessary to become part of the world around us and make it real by touching it, seeing it, feeling it, tasting it, and smelling it - direct contact with the environment is what we seek."

 

- Viola Spolin, Improvisation for the Theatre

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Unlike many forms of improv, this work attempts to avoid cleverness (what Spolin called "playwrighting") which comes from the head and therefore limits possibilities.  In most improv players are taught to "yes, and..." each other, ad-libbing and adding new information to a scene and attempting to develop a story or make a joke.  Spolin believed that this sort of improvising is actually a withdrawal from the present moment, and that true improvisation is connection and communion between players.

 

Thus these games seek to connect players with each other, and with their environment using space objects.  Interaction between players is built up organically, allowing players to share an onstage reality where transformation can take place. 

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"In time, mutual trust makes it possible for students to give themselves over to the evaluation.  Able to keep a single purpose in mind, for they no longer need to watch themselves, they become eager to know exactly where the problem might have gotten away from them."

 

- Viola Spolin, Improvisation for the Theatre

 

Because the emphasis is not on ad-libbing dialogue, this work is equally applicable to scripted theatre as well as improvisational theatre.  In fact, the ability to improvise could be described as a by-product or side effect of the learning process!  Improvisation is how we experience and therefore learn.

 

Spolin developed her methods through her work with children and youth, again making this way of working unique as the only acting method to be developed with and for children!  However, these games work for everyone, of any age.

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Spolin's work has also influenced the fields of social work and mental health.

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If you'd like to learn more about Viola Spolin, please visit violaspolin.org.

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