“Story and games bring out self rather than ego.”
EDUCATOR scholarship fund drive
Please consider a contribution to our scholarship fund for educators who take our workshops to share the transformational work of Viola Spolin and Paul Sills in their schools and communities. Your gift allows us to offer scholarships to educators, social workers, or therapists who help others with Spolin improvisation and story theater. Your tax-deductible donation will bring play into more classrooms around the world.
Educators play Spolin's theater games because they make learning deep, experiential, and fun. We've worked with teachers, professors, social workers, and therapists who use theater games to help kids and adults with special needs, with refugees, immigrants, ESL and ELL students, with incarcerated adults and patients in hospitals. The educators who come to our workshops teach law, business, art, dance, science, and many other disciplines using theater games--even theater! Thank you for your contribution.
YOUR TAX-DEDUCTIBLE CONTRIBUTION MAY BE MADE ONLINE, BY MAIL, OR PHONE
To donate by check, please email us for instructions. To donate by phone, please call 1-888-692-7878.
Sills/Spolin Theater Works is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Check contributions for the charitable purposes of Sills/Spolin Theater Works must be made payable to “Fractured Atlas” only and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law. Fractured Atlas is a non-profit fiscal sponsorship umbrella organization that serves a national community of artists and arts organizations.
QUOTES FROM PAST RECIPIENTS OF EDUCATOR SCHOLARSHIPS:
“The lessons I have learned transcend language, platform and ability, as Viola Spolin’s Theater Games allow for each individual to give and receive in their own space and time. Each session is packed with valuable insight and adaptable concepts that can be easily shared in every classroom. ”
“While I was familiar with Viola Spolin’s work as a performer, I never considered how her work could impact me as an educator. When I saw that there was a scholarship available I jumped at the chance to find out what it was all about. Not a day goes by that I don’t utilize Theater Games with my students. When a problem arises, we play a game. Simply put, you won’t experience education the same way ever again.”
Sills/Spolin Theater Works Mission Statement
Paul Sills and Viola Spolin, 1974
It is the responsibility of Sills/Spolin Theater Works to maintain the improvisational theater tradition of Paul Sills and Viola Spolin and to preserve and share their unique vision of American theater. This work includes bringing their approach to education and entertainment to the community through presenting Spolin theater game workshops, training in Sills’ story theater process, publishing of their writings and managing their respective archives. Sills/Spolin Theater Works is registered with Fractured Atlas, a fiscal sponsorship organization.
Carol Bleackley Sills, Director
Aretha Sills, Executive Director
Outreach:
Sills/Spolin Theater Works educators are available to bring workshops in Theater Games and Story Theater to your school or organization. We also direct productions, offer teacher training, and speak to groups about how improvisational theater in the United States emerged out of social activism at Jane Addams Hull-House via the work of Neva Boyd, Viola Spolin, and Paul Sills.
See our News page for recent news, videos, photos, etc.
Contact us with inquiries.
Recent and Ongoing Projects:
Keynote address and conversation with Alan Alda at the Applied Improvisation Network World Conference 2019, which was held at the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University. See video here.
Co-organizing A Tribute to Spolin & Sills at Jane Addams’ Hull-House Museum on the UCI campus in June 2020. The event, hosted by Mark Larson, author of Ensemble: An Oral History of Chicago Theater, involved Sills/Spolin players, colleagues, and family members, and included the Chicago theater community, including the Department of Cultural Affairs. See video and photos here.
Ongoing performances of “Everybody Can Improvise: Theater Games with the Predicament Players,” a new show of Viola Spolin’s theater games for elementary-school children in the Los Angeles Unified School District, created and directed by Aretha Sills, presented by Enrichment Works, a non-profit organization which brings theater that inspires learning into Los Angeles schools. Learn more and see photos here.
Teacher training sessions for LAUSD drama and dance teachers in 2018 and 2019.
Outreach workshops for a variety of groups ages 4 - 84. We’ve recently offered workshops, community discussions, and events for: The Jane Addams’ Hull-House Museum in Chicago; ChaiVillageLA, a community for older Jewish adults; Los Angeles Drama Club, the country’s youngest Shakespeare Troupe; and for children ages 4-12 in LAUSD’s YDP after-school program through Enrichment Works.
Preparation of Sills and Spolin writings for publication and for their respective archives. We hope to publish several volumes of Sills' writings, anthologies of his shows, and Spolin and Sills' correspondence, which requires the transcription of a vast amount of material before editing.
In late 2018, we launched a scholarship drive to allow more educators to take our workshops. Learn more here.
Participation in the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum symposium “Crafting Social Change: Participatory Arts at Hull House” in Chicago, in 2018.
Delivering presentations about Viola Spolin, Neva Boyd, Paul Sills, and the history of improvisational theater in the United States at symposiums and conferences around the country, including the Global Improvisation Initiative at University of California Irvine, for California Educational Theatre Association, at The Jane Addams’ Hull-House Museum at University of Illinois, Chicago, and at The Applied Improvisation Network World Conference at Stony Brook University.
Leading faculty trainings at LAUSD, CETA, and elsewhere. We have trained faculty from The Second City, Northwestern University, USC, DePaul Goodman, Columbia College, Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science, Piven Theatre Workshop, University of Illinois, University of Wisconsin, UNLV, Stella Adler Studio (New York) and many other schools and universities.
Formation of a youth theater program in Los Angeles. To learn more, please visit here.
Maintaining studios for ongoing archival work.
Ongoing improvisational Theater Game and Story Theater Workshops in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, the Bay Area, and around the country, as well as at Paul Sills’ Wisconsin Theater Game Center in Door County, WI. Current workshops can be found here.
Editing of Viola Spolin’s updated Director’s Handbook, released by Northwestern University Press. Currently editing 4th edition of Spolin’s Improvisation for the Theater.
Advising curators of the Viola Spolin exhibit at Northwestern University Library. Delivering keynote lecture on the improvisational theater of Viola Spolin and Paul Sills. Coaching a Theater Game workshop for Northwestern students and staff.
Direction of Story Theater productions by Carol Sills at New Actor's Workshop in New York, Central Methodist University in Missouri, and elsewhere around the country.
Delivery of keynote address at the 2015 California Educational Theatre Conference on the subject of Neva Boyd, Viola Spolin, Paul Sills and the emergence of American improvisational theater from the progressive education movement.
Adaptation of verses from Iceland’s Poetic Edda for a Story Theater production, Fish Creek, WI.
Direction of stories for New Jersey City Children’s Theater, with Kathy Hendrickson and faculty.
Carol Bleackley Sills, Director of Sills/Spolin Theater Works, has been influential in improvisational theater since the early sixties. At Second City she studied with Viola Spolin, later becoming her editor. Carol designed Paul Sills’ shows, and with Paul created many innovative theaters namely The Game Theater, Story Theater, Body Politic, Century Hall, The Learning Theater (now Second City’s E.T.C. Experimental Theater Co.) and Sills & Co. Theater on Heliotrope Drive in Los Angeles. Carol designed New Actors Workshop and co-directed there. She coached Story Theater at Paul Sills’ Wisconsin Theater Game Center and nationwide. Carol studied from childhood with Montreal painter and arts educator Arthur Lismer. Over the years Carol presented group practice in painting, drawing and sculpture at The Parents School, Chicago; The Jamaica Arts Center, Queens; Peninsula Art School, Fish Creek; and in her own Wisconsin studio, which she called Mud Lake Art School.
Executive Director Aretha Sills teaches improvisational theater around the world. The granddaughter of Viola Spolin, she studied for many years with her father, Paul Sills, and has conducted workshops for Paul Sills' Wisconsin Theater Game Center, Stella Adler Studio of Acting, Sarah Lawrence College, and Northwestern University. She works with Tony- and Emmy-Award winning actors and has trained faculty from Northwestern, DePaul, Columbia College, The Second City, The Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science, LAUSD, CETA, and many other institutions and schools. She directs The Predicament Players. She created and directs a show touring in Los Angeles schools. Aretha has given keynote addresses and talks about the origins of improvisational theater at the California Educational Theatre Conference, the Applied Improvisation Network World Conference, the Global Improvisation Initiative, and Jane Addams Hull-House Museum at UIC. Her current workshops can be found here.