Viola Spolin

Improvisation for the Theater: A Handbook of Teaching and Directing Techniques Viola Spolin

2017 Reprint of 1963 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition software. "An iconoclastic handbook of theater by the high priestess of improvisational theater in this country... The exercises are artifices against artificiality, structures designed to almost fool spontaneity into being--or perhaps a frame, carefully built to keep out interferences, in which the student-actor waits... Genius, unguarded, "happens" and stage fright, awkward movements, poor enunciation, phoniness, lack of characterization, in fact nearly every ill ever witnessed on stage, disappears... Those in theater, film makers included, will find this an important document in practice and theory; it is a bit like Natural Childbirth to obstetrics"--Film Quarterly.