Viola Spolin

In this review I will be discussing Viola Spolin. I will talk about her contributions, views and ideas, with regards to drama in education, the roles of students and teachers and theatre games.

Theatre educator, director, and actress recognized internationally for her ‘Theatre Games’ system of actor training, was raised in a tradition of family theatre amusements, operas, and charades. While she served as a drama supervisor for the Chicago branch of the Works Progress Administration's Recreational Project, 1939-1941, Spolin saw a need for an easily grasped system of theatre training that could cross the cultural and ethnic barriers within the WPA Project. Building upon the experience of Neva Boyd's work at Chicago’s Hull House, she developed new games that focused upon individual; creativity, extension of self, motivation, adapting and focusing the concept of play to unlock the individual's capacity for creative self-expression and contact with others through space. These techniques were

Spolin’s theories and practices have created, for most, a resolution for teaching drama to students. Not only to teaching it, but at the same time to make it engaging, fun, practical, and beneficial. Each one of Spolin’s exercises is a lesson in itself. It teaches the students and the teacher an aspect of drama or how to improve or further develop that skill. Spolin suggests that when doing an exercise, the student should not be told the problem as this shifts the concentration on what the teacher wants instead of working on solving the problem. In this idea alone we can see that Spolin encourages process over the end product, if the processes are effective, the end product should be satisfying.

Gary Schwartz agrees with Spolin on what a teacher should be like, and adds, "Pick someone who is in the act of exploring the work along with you, one who is interested in allowing you to have an experience on your own, who is going to encourage you to be creative. Go with your own gut. Be on a personal journey to become spontaneous and relaxed. Trust and believe in your own personal experience. Take only the experiences that have a profound effect on you as the truth; let everything else not matter." (Kerr 1993)

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