Viola Spolin - Improvisation for the Theater (1963)

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Don't initiate! Follow the initiator! Follow the follower.

Viola Spolin
Everyone can act. Everyone can improvise. Anyone who wishes to can play in the theater and learn to become 'stage-worthy.' We learn through experience and experiencing, and no one teaches anyone anything. This is as true for the infant moving from kicking and crawling to walking as it is for the scientist with his equations. If the environment permits it, anyone can learn whatever he chooses to learn; and if the individual permits it, the environment will teach him everything it has to teach. 'Talent' or 'lack of talent' have little to do with it.

Viola Spolin
That which is not yet known comes out of that which is not yet here.

Viola Spolin
It is highly possible that what is called 'talented behavior' is simply a greater individual capacity for experiencing. From this point of view, it is in the increasing of the individual capacity for experiencing that the untold potentiality of a personality can be evoked.

Viola Spolin
Through spontaneity we are re-formed into ourselves.

Viola Spolin
When the rational mind is shut off, we have the possibility of intuition.

Viola Spolin
It stands to reason that if we direct all our efforts towards reaching a goal, we stand in grave danger of losing everything on which we have based our daily activities. For when a goal is superimposed on an activity instead of evolving out of it, we often feel cheated when we reach it.

Viola Spolin
General improvisations often give actors an insight beyond their words by helping them to 'see the word' and achieve a reality for the scene.

Viola Spolin