Theater Games for the Lone Actor

by Spolin, Viola; Sills, Carol; Sills, Paul

• ISBN13: 9780810140103
• ISBN10: 0810140101
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-09-01
• Publisher: Northwestern Univ Pr

Summary

This companion to Spolin's "Improvisation for the Theater" presents over 40 exercises which allow actors to side coach themselves, at home, in rehearsal, or in performance. Spolin is the originator of theater games and her improvisational techniques have changed the nature and practice of modern theater.

Author Biography

Viola Spolin, the originator of theater games, was introduced to the use of games, storytelling, folk dance, and dramatics as tools for stimulating creative expression in the 1920s while a student of Neva Boyd at Chicago's Hull House. During her years as a teacher and supervisor of creative dramatics there, she began to develop her nonverbal, nonpsychological approach. Her books have been translated into Swedish, German, and Portuguese. She died in 1994. Paul Sills is Viola Spolin's son and the founding director of Chicago's Second City and of Story Theater. He is the coeditor of the third edition of Spolin's Improvisation for the Theater, also published by Northwestern University Press.

Table of Contents

Foreword	ix
Crystal Ball	xii
Author's Preface	xiii
Playing the Games
Into Your Space	4	(1)
Playing the Games	5	(2)
Side Coaching Yourself	7	(9)
Basic Warm-up Exercise	10	(2)
Feeling Self with Self	12	(2)
Sit in Silence	14	(1)
Exhalation	15	(1)
Space Substance	16	(14)
Space Walk I: Exploration	17	(3)
Space Walk II: Support and Effort	20	(3)
Space Substance: For Hands	23	(2)
Physicalizing and Object	25	(2)
Begin and end with Objects	27	(3)
Where, Who, and What	30	(9)
Playground	31	(2)
How Old Am I?	33	(2)
How Old Am I? Repeat	35	(2)
Emerging Where: PART I	37	(1)
Emerging Where: PART II	38	(1)
Gibberish	39	(4)
Gibberish/Introduction	40	(1)
Gibberish/Demonstration	41	(2)
Slow Motion	43	(5)
Slow/Fast/Normal	45	(3)
Seeing and Not Staring	48	(11)
Touch and be Touched/See and be Seen	50	(2)
See Unlabeled	52	(2)
Peripheral Vision	54	(2)
Penetration	56	(1)
Penetrating the Visible	57	(2)
No Motion	59	(7)
No Motion Warm-up	61	(3)
No Motion Walking	64	(2)
Speech and Sound	66	(14)
Extended Sound	67	(3)
Singing Dialogue	70	(1)
Seeing the Word	71	(2)
Spelling	73	(2)
Vowels and Consonants	75	(3)
Deaf Audience	78	(2)
Physicalizing Attitudes	80	(10)
Attitudes: Your Own	81	(3)
Attitudes: Others'	84	(4)
Holdit	88	(2)
Rounding-Out Exercises	90	(16)
Camera	91	(2)
Shadowing	93	(2)
What's Beyond? Entering	95	(2)
What's Beyond? Exiting	97	(1)
Begin and end	98	(4)
Occluding	102	(2)
Exits and Entrances	104	(2)
Memorization	106	(3)
Memorization	107	(2)
Five Obstacles to a Direct Experience	109	(12)
Score	115	(6)
Going Forth	121	(2)
Suggested Games for Specific Needs	123	(3)
Traditional Games	126	(3)
How Much do you Remember?	129	(1)
Observation Game	130	(1)
Three Changes	131	(1)
Concentration	132	(1)
Ghost	133	(2)
When I go to California	135	(2)
My Ship is Coming From London	137	(1)
Geography	138	(1)
Buzz	139	(1)
Rhythm	140	(1)
Proverbs	141	(1)
Rhymes	142	(1)
Transformation of Words	143	(1)
Name Six	144	(1)
Crambo, or I'm Thinking of a Word	145	(4)
Glossaries
Viola's Dictionary	149	(32)
Glossary of Side-Coaching Phrases	181	(6)
Alphabetical List of Games	187