The Art of Sidecoaching
The most subtle and essential element in Spolin Games is sidecoaching. The sidecoach is at once a fellow player, a grounded teacher and a canny director. Sidecoaching is as much a skill as it is an art. It therefore requires the same intuitive ability evoked by playing. In addition, the sidecoach has to also be.. read more →
The Genius of Preoccupation
Spolin’s pathway to the Unknown The [Spolin’s Theater Games] 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 player waits. Important in the game is the ‘ball’ — the FOCUS, a technical problem, sometimes a double technical problem which.. read more →
A Sense of Urgency
Using Slow Motion to counteract Urgency This happened to me in an early workshop with Viola when we were working on The Where: The scene is a spaceship. I’m the navigator. Andy is the captain, and we have two prisoners from another planet on board. I sit placidly at my controls downstage. The captain yells.. read more →
What’s in a Game?
“Acting requires presence. Playing produces this state.” – Viola Spolin When I assisted Viola Spolin in various workshops, the very first thing we would play was a game of “Swat Tag”. The game involves a group of people sitting in chairs, a ‘home base’ (a chair or stool set out in front of the group).. read more →
My Big Breakthrough
“…trying to force an insight can actually prevent the insight. While it is commonly assumed that the best way to solve a difficult problem is to relentlessly focus, this clenched state of mind comes with a hidden cost; it inhibits the sort of creative connections that lead to breakthroughs.” –.. read more →
Tales of Viola Spolin
How Viola Spolin Helped Me Overcome Self-Pity “Poor me. Nobody loves me.” Underneath my cheerful façade, underneath my very well developed sense of humor, I walked aroundHollywoodwith that deeply embedded in my soul. I was working as a bartender, ministering to and medicating others’ pain with banter and booze while chasing the dream of being.. read more →
Out of the Head and Into the Space
Discovering Space as Substance and a New Reality[i] Preface I started my performing career as a mime. Mimes in the mid 1970’s and 80’s were synonymous with corny uninspired white faced buskers who went around mimicking passers-by and asking for money. I became a mime at the age of thirteen in 1964. In the 60’s.. read more →
Viola Spolin and Me
My First Encounter with the Mother of Improvisation I was living in Hollywood, tending bar, performing comedy and mime in local cafes and trying to break into show business like thousands of other hopefuls from all over the country. A dear friend of mine called from Potsdam University. He told me he was doing a paper.. read more →