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Viola Spolin (November 7, 1906 — November 22, 1994) was 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.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.spolin.com/violabio.html )〕 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 her philosophy and her teaching and coaching methods, and is considered the "bible of improvisational theater". Spolin's contributions were seminal to the improvisational theater movement in the U.S. She is considered to be the mother of Improvisational theater. Her work has influenced American theater, television and film by providing new tools and techniques that are now used by actors, directors and writers. Spolin influenced the first generation of improvisational actors at the Second City in Chicago in the late 1950s, through her son, Paul Sills. He was the founding director of the Compass Players which led to the formation of the Second City. He used her techniques in the training and direction of the company, which enabled them to create satirical improvisational theater about current social & political issues. Spolin also taught workshops for Second City actors, as well as for the general public. Paul Sills and the success of the Second City were largely responsible for the popularization of improvisational theater, which became best known as a comedy form called "improv". Many actors, writers and directors, grew out of that school of theater and had formative experiences performing and being trained at the Second City. See below for a list of notable theater, television and film professionals who were influenced by Spolin & Sills. Spolin developed acting exercises or "games" that unleashed creativity, adapting focused "play" to unlock the individual's capacity for creative self-expression. Viola Spolin's use of recreational games in theater came from her background with the Works Progress Administration during the Great Depression where she studied with Neva Boyd starting in 1924. Spolin also taught classes at Jane Addams' Hull House in Chicago. She authored a number of texts on improvisation. Her first and most famous was ''Improvisation for the Theater'', published by Northwestern University Press. This book has become a classic resource for improvisational actors, directors and teachers. It has been published in three editions in 1963, 1983 and 1999. ==Early work== Viola Spolin initially trained to be a settlement worker (from 1924–1927), studying at Neva Boyd's Group Work School in Chicago. Boyd's innovative teaching in the areas of group leadership, recreation, and social group work strongly influenced Spolin, as did the use of traditional game structures to affect social behavior in inner-city and immigrant children. While serving as drama supervisor for the Chicago branch of the Works Progress Administration's Recreational Project (1939–1941), Spolin perceived a need to create within the WPA drama programan easily grasped system of theater training that could cross the cultural and ethnic barriers of the immigrant children with whom she worked. According to Spolin, Boyd's teachings provided "an extraordinary training in the use of games, story-telling, folk dance and dramatics as tools for stimulating creative expression in both children and adults, through self discovery and personal experiencing."〔''The Hollywood Reporter Comedy Special Report''. January 26, 1988.〕 Building upon the experience of Boyd's work, she responded by developing new games that focused on individual creativity, adapting and focusing the concept of play to unlock the individual's capacity for creative self-expression. These techniques were later to be formalized under the rubric "Theater Games".〔(The Spolin Center )〕 Spolin acknowledged she was influenced by J.L. Moreno, originator of the therapeutic techniques known as psychodrama and sociodrama. Spolin's exercises had a therapeutic impact on players. She drew on Moreno's idea of using audience suggestions as the base of an improvisation, which became a hallmark of the Second City's brand of improv and is now universally employed in workshop and performance.〔http://books.google.com/books?id=fMiTmZqPL0kC&lpg=PA22&dq=Viola%20Spolin%20purpose&pg=PA22#v=onepage&q=Viola%20Spolin%20purpose&f=false〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Viola Spolin」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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