Improvisation for the Theatre.

Since we completely finished Stanislavski's work yesterday, we moved on to Viola Spolin's Improvisation for the Theatre. I don't exactly remember when, but we had previously discussed Spolin's work. I believe it was Jenny who had brought her up in one of our earlier discussions, and she even mentioned this particular work of hers. Before coming into today's class, I already knew that Spolin's book would consist of largely improvisation activities that would constitute as "warm-ups". For the reason, I didn't think that she would provide much theory of her own. After the discussion, however, I learned that much of what Spolin wrote about was rooted in the work of Stanislavski, and I guess that makes sense considering Stanislavski is the father of theatre theory. Spolin stressed as well the importance of hand gestures as she considered them to be the things that the audience paid the most attention to. Concentration was another major aspect of Spolin's direction. She believed that the best acting comes when it is natural to the actor. If all else fails, Spolin encourages you to follow your instinct because it will lead to the natural action that will make your character all the more believable. Upon finishing Spolin's work, we then began Uta Hagen's Respect for Acting. I'll save the rest of that discussion for tomorrow though, because we did not finish.