Viola Spolin (1906–94), the originator of theater games, was introduced to the use of games, storytelling, folk dance, and dramatics as tools for stimulating creative expression while a student of Neva Boyd in Boyd’s Recreational Training School. During her years as a teacher and supervisor of creative dramatics there, Spolin began to develop her nonverbal, nonpsychological approach.Carol Bleackley Sills, director of Sills/Spolin Theater Works, has been Viola Spolin’s editor since 1983. She studied with Viola Spolin and helped start the Game Theater, Chicago. She collaborated with her husband, Viola’s son Paul, on a new form he called Story Theater. She presents workshops at Paul Sills’ Wisconsin Theater Game Center and, most recently, directed The Tao of Chuang Chou at New Actors Workshop in New York.
