Tag Archives: Paul Sills

Alan Alda, Laura Lindenfeld, and Aretha Sills in Conversation at AIN Conference

What an amazing night! Alan Alda, Laura Lindenfeld, and Aretha Sills talked about the 10th anniversary of the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science and how his work with Paul Sills and Viola Spolin was an inspiration for the original idea and program. It was an absolute pleasure and honor to learn about the exciting and vital work they are doing in science communication!

The event was part of the Applied Improvisation World Network Conference at Stony Brook University this August.

View photos here.

Talk on the History of Improvisation at the Global Improvisation Initiative Symposium

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Aretha Sills speaking about Jane Addams at the 2017 Global Improvisation Initiative Symposium.

On May 12th, I gave a talk at the first annual Global Improvisation Initiative Symposium at University of California, Irvine. Titled “A Search for Community: Viola Spolin, Paul Sills, and the Origins of Improvisational Theater in the U.S.”, the talk and Q&A traced the roots of their work to the radical Progressive-era philosophies cultivated at Jane Addams’ Hull House in Chicago using stories, personal history, photographs, and Spolin and Sills’ own words and writing.

In 1955, Paul Sills’ called the new improvisational theater, Compass, “a search for a community.” Viola Spolin (originator of Theater Games and author of Improvisation for the Theater) and Paul Sills (founding director of Compass, The Second City, and Story Theater) created a form of theater that celebrated American ideals of liberty, community, and democracy.