Viola Spolin
Viola Spolin
Viola Spolinwas a theatre academic, educator and acting coach. She is considered an important innovator in 20th century American theater for creating directorial techniques to help actors to be focused in the present moment and to find choices improvisationally, as if in real life. These acting exercises she later called Theater Games and formed the first body of work that enabled other directors and actors to create improvisational theater. Her book Improvisation for the Theater, which published these techniques, includes...
Viola Spolin quotes about
views personality acting
It is highly possible that what is called 'talented behavior' is simply a greater individual capacity for experiencing. From this point of view, it is in the increasing of the individual capacity for experiencing that the untold potentiality of a personality can be evoked.
creativity play mind
Play touches and stimulates vitality, awakening the whole person - mind, body, intelligence and creativity.
communication games discipline
Theater Games are a process applicable to any field, discipline, or subject matter which creates a place where full participation, communication, and transformation can take place.
limits firsts break
First teach a person to develop to the point of his limitation and then-pfft!-break the limitation.
technique theater communicate
The techniques of the theater are the techniques of communicating.
teach
We learn through experience and experiencing, and no one teaches anyone anything.
meaningful player acting
The audience is the most revered member of the theater. Without an audience, there is no theater. Everything done is ultimately for the enjoyment of the audience. They are our guests, fellow players, and the last spoke in the wheel which can then begin to roll. They make the performance meaningful.
losing-everything daily-activities goal
It stands to reason that if we direct all our efforts towards reaching a goal, we stand in grave danger of losing everything on which we have based our daily activities. For when a goal is superimposed on an activity instead of evolving out of it, we often feel cheated when we reach it.
spontaneity
Through spontaneity we are re-formed into ourselves.
cages turns
One must be chary of words because they turn into cages.
intuition new-things
The unknown is where we go to find new things and intuition is how we find them.
clever creativity rearranging
Creativity is not the clever rearranging of the known.
reality giving actors
General improvisations often give actors an insight beyond their words by helping them to 'see the word' and achieve a reality for the scene.
followers initiate
Don’t initiate! Follow the initiator! Follow the follower.