Neutral Scene Checklist
neutral_scene_script_annalysis_rubric.pdf | |
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Sound Effects and Foley Sound
Foley Sound
Improv expansions
improv_playing_helpful_hints.pdf | |
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Stage Movement:
tableau_melcon.pdf | |
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blocking_map_example.pdf | |
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tableau_melcon.pdf | |
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Sample Program
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Discussion links:
http://www.upworthy.com/here-is-how-one-artist-captured-the-fragility-of-an-abusive-relationship
http://www.teensagainstabuse.org/index.php?q=statistics
http://www.upworthy.com/here-is-how-one-artist-captured-the-fragility-of-an-abusive-relationship
http://www.teensagainstabuse.org/index.php?q=statistics
Rehearsal Process
The Rehearsal process is as follows:
1. Read Through
2. Blocking
3. Intentions / motivations
4. Off book / Actors must know lines
5. Work through /Stage business
6. Polish / moments / details
7. Run Through
8. Tech - Lights, sound, set changes, etc. (set curtain call)
9. Run Through with Tech
10. Dress rehearsal (in costumes)
11. Final Dress Rehearsal (full rehearsal with all tech)
1. Read Through
2. Blocking
3. Intentions / motivations
4. Off book / Actors must know lines
5. Work through /Stage business
6. Polish / moments / details
7. Run Through
8. Tech - Lights, sound, set changes, etc. (set curtain call)
9. Run Through with Tech
10. Dress rehearsal (in costumes)
11. Final Dress Rehearsal (full rehearsal with all tech)
Stage Movement Keynote
stage_movement.pdf | |
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Stage Areas
All students are responsible for knowing stage areas. The stage is labeled from the actor's perspective and the house is always labeled from the audiences perspective. Therefore when sitting in the house stage right and left are opposite your right and left.
Origins of Theatre Reading
reading_orgins_and_greek_roman_theatre.pdf | |
File Size: | 75 kb |
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Origins of Theatre
Origins of Theatre
First of all, it is vital to realize that every culture around the world has some form of theatre. It is a basic, human tendency to create theatre. This is true whether you believe in Adam and Eve or in cavemen (or both).
Theatre is the most human of the arts because its subject matter is life itself. Its medium is live human actors, which keeps it human (though some directors have wanted actors to be more like robots!). Theatre is also ephemeral, i.e. of the moment, lasting only a very short time, just like much of our lives consists of temporary things.
If we ask ourselves, "Selves, how would theatre have come into being?" All we have to really do is ask ourselves "What are some basic ways we communicate orally?" Well, there's talking, of course. That requires the use of words (or cavemen might grunt in meaningful ways). While talking, we might use our hands or our stance to communicate. These are gestures that require movement. We also communicate with our face as we smile, frown, or look disturbed.
So now what are some basic reasons we communicate? Here are a few suggestions:
First of all, it is vital to realize that every culture around the world has some form of theatre. It is a basic, human tendency to create theatre. This is true whether you believe in Adam and Eve or in cavemen (or both).
Theatre is the most human of the arts because its subject matter is life itself. Its medium is live human actors, which keeps it human (though some directors have wanted actors to be more like robots!). Theatre is also ephemeral, i.e. of the moment, lasting only a very short time, just like much of our lives consists of temporary things.
If we ask ourselves, "Selves, how would theatre have come into being?" All we have to really do is ask ourselves "What are some basic ways we communicate orally?" Well, there's talking, of course. That requires the use of words (or cavemen might grunt in meaningful ways). While talking, we might use our hands or our stance to communicate. These are gestures that require movement. We also communicate with our face as we smile, frown, or look disturbed.
So now what are some basic reasons we communicate? Here are a few suggestions:
- to inform, convince, or motivate
- to celebrate
- to establish or reaffirm paradigms, beliefs, memberships and identities
- to heal
- to request
- to play
- Storytelling: This form of communication uses a narrative mode and sometimes uses a dramatic mode. The famous philosopher Aristotle (4th Century BC) noted that humans naturally like to imitate others, both through storytelling and through action. The term he used was mimesis, which indicates impersonation and/or enactment.
- Dance is another means of communication that many feel may have contributed to the origins of theatre. Mimesis can apply here, too, especially as it is in human nature to imitate, but not exactly. We like to change things so that our perspective of events can be understood more clearly.
- Ritual and sympathetic magic is another means of communication that often involves storytelling, dance or both. Aristotle suggested that formal theatre originated with mimesis and these artistic things and combined with profound and mythical thought to form ritual. Ritual, which is always performative, transforms much of its spiritual essence to artistic essence. Though he presents only vague evidence in his philosophical treatises, Aristotle’s theories on the origin of theatre have been pretty much believed since the discovery of his manuscript The Poetics in the late 14th Century. He is finally beginning to be doubted.
- Games may be another means by which theatre originated. Even kids play "house" and "doctor." The playing of games has a natural tendency to drift toward the dramatic, and theatre is often the result.
4 Influential Chicago Theatres
Theatre: Readings
Steppenwolf:
In January of 1974, in Highland Park, Illinois, Rick Argosh and Leslie Wilson approached their former high school classmate Gary Sinise about staging a production of Paul Zindel's And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little. Sinise had recently graduated from high school, and Rick and Leslie had one semester remaining. Steppenwolf co-founders Jeff Perry and Gary Sinise had met and become friends at Highland Park High School. Jeff was then attending college at Illinois State University where he had met co-founder Terry Kinney.
Gary agreed to be in the production of Miss Reardon, and sought out a space where he, Rick and Leslie could produce the play. Through a family friend, Gary secured the rights to perform in a Unitarian church on Half Day Road in Deerfield, Illinois, and the trio staged the inaugural production of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company. The name Steppenwolf came from the book by Herman Hesse, which Argosh was reading at the time.
Three more plays were produced under this first incarnation of Steppenwolf. Grease, which Sinise would produce, direct and act in; The Glass Menagerie, which Argosh directed with Sinise appearing as Tom; and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, also directed by Argosh, which was the first teaming of Terry Kinney, Jeff Perry and Gary Sinise, Steppenwolf’s three founders. During this production, in June of 1974, Kinney, Perry, and Sinise decided that when Kinney and Perry finished college they would find a permanent space and start a professional resident ensemble theater company.
Steppenwolf incorporated as a non-profit in 1975, with an expanded ensemble that included Terry Kinney, Jeff Perry, Gary Sinise, H.E. Baccus, Nancy Evans, Moira Harris, John Malkovich, Laurie Metcalf and Alan Wilder. The company took up residence in the basement of a Catholic school in Highland Park in the summer of 1976 and produced its first season of plays. In 1980 the company moved from Highland Park to the city of Chicago and expanded the ensemble.
Over the course of the 1980s, the company continued to expand, producing plays that went on to receive national and international attention. In 1991, Steppenwolf built its current theater at 1650 North Halsted Street in Chicago. Steppenwolf has now grown into a company which includes forty-three ensemble members, whose strengths include acting, directing, playwriting, and textual adaptation. Now in its fourth decade as a professional theater company, Steppenwolf has received unprecedented national and international recognition, including a series of Tony Awards, and The National Medal of Arts. Click here for a full timeline of notable, events, productions and awards at Steppenwolf.
Goodman Theate:
Goodman Theatre, recipient of the Special Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre, is internationally recognized for its artists, productions and educational programs. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Robert Falls and Executive Director Roche Schulfer, the Goodman is committed to producing classic and contemporary works, giving full voice to a wide range of artists and visions.
Goodman Theatre was established in July 1922, by a gift of $250,000 from William and Erna Goodman to the Art Institute of Chicago for the purpose of building a theater to memorialize their son, Kenneth Sawyer Goodman. Before his death at the age of 35 in the influenza epidemic of 1918, Kenneth Sawyer Goodman had written, published and produced a number of plays in non-commercial productions in Chicago, and had expressed his vision of an ideal theater, one that would combine professional training with the highest possible performance standards.
Four months after the gift was received, the Art Institute began construction of the new theater on the northeast corner of its property, at Monroe and Columbus Drive. They soon hired the theater's first artistic director, Thomas Woods Stevens, a former colleague of Kenneth Sawyer Goodman's and a noted educator who had established America's first theater degree-granting program at Carnegie Mellon University.
The new theater, encompassing a drama school and a professional acting company, opened its doors on October 20, 1925. Three of Goodman's one-act plays were presented at the theater's dedication ceremony. Two nights later the Goodman began its first regular season with John Galsworthy's The Forest. Stevens built the new theater's repertory with a mix of classics, contemporary hits and experimental and new plays, a formula that the theater has generally adhered to ever since.
Stevens led the Goodman for five years before resigning in 1930 over a dispute about the deficit the theater had accumulated. The Art Institute replaced him with Hubert Osbourne, a former student of Stevens', who ran the theater for a year until the Art Institute decided that the professional acting company would prove too costly to maintain. The professional acting company was disbanded, but the Art Institute kept the doors of the drama school open.
Maurice Gnesin, who Stevens hired during the 1929/1930 Season, stepped in as the new head of the Goodman School of Drama when Stevens resigned. A scholarly Russian, Gnesin ran the school for the next 27 years, aided by his colleague and fellow Russian, the actor David Itkin. The Goodman School built a formidable reputation over the following decades and graduated many stellar theater artists, including Karl Malden, Sam Wanamaker, Geraldine Page, Shelley Berman, Harvey Korman, José Quintero, Linda Hunt and Joe Mantegna. The school was also noted for its children's theater, run for many years by Charlotte Chorpenning, whose adaptations of children's stories made her the most produced playwright in Goodman Theatre history. Thousands of Chicagoans got their first taste of theater at the Goodman's weekend matinees.
In 1957 Maurice Gnesin passed away and David Itkin retired. The Art Institute offered the artistic directorship to John Reich, a native Austrian who had trained with legendary director Max Reinhardt. Reich accepted the position under the condition that the theater commit to re-establishing the professional acting company. Over the next decade, Reich slowly rebuilt the Goodman's subscribership, bringing in stars to lead casts of student actors and attracting new attention to the theater. In the fall of 1969, the Goodman opened the new season featuring the first fully professional acting company at the theater in nearly 40 years. But maintaining a resident company of professionals proved expensive and led to the largest deficits in the theater's history. Two years later, the theater began hiring actors on a show-by-show basis. In 1972, John Reich was asked to resign. A new managing director, Ken Myers, brought in during Reich's last year to oversee the theater's business side and ran the theater for a year before resigning himself.
In 1973, William Woodman, a director with considerable experience in regional theaters, was appointed artistic director. Woodman saw the theater through a period of restructuring. In 1976, the Goodman separated itself from the Art Institute, incorporating as the Chicago Theatre Group, Inc, which allowed it to pursue fundraising independently. In 1978, the theater divested itself of the Goodman School, which was acquired by DePaul University. Woodman also instituted Stage 2, a venue for new work within the Goodman framework. Gregory Mosher, Woodman's assistant, and Roche Schulfer, a young business office assistant, were placed in charge of Stage 2, which became a proving ground for up-and-coming Chicago actors, directors and writers, one of whom was David Mamet, whose play American Buffalo premiered at Stage 2 in 1975.
After running the Goodman for five seasons, William Woodman resigned in 1978 and Gregory Mosher was appointed artistic director. A year later Roche Schulfer was appointed managing director. Mosher led the theater through the 1984/1985 Season, bringing much new work to the Goodman, including plays by Nobel Prize winners Wole Soyinka and Derek Walcott, and new plays by American masters Edward Albee and Tennessee Williams, including Williams' last produced play, A House Not Meant to Stand. In 1985 Mosher left the Goodman to take over Lincoln Center Theater in New York City.
The Goodman replaced Mosher with Robert Falls, a young director who was a product of the off-Loop theater boom of the 1970s. Falls, who was born in downstate Illinois and grew up in the Chicago suburbs, left the University of Illinois and immediately began directing in Chicago. At the age of 23 he was appointed to lead Wisdom Bridge Theatre, where he stayed for eight years before being named the Goodman's artistic director. Falls brought with him to the Goodman two colleagues from the off-Loop theater scene, Frank Galati and Michael Maggio, to serve as associates, and a young director from New York, David Petrarca. In the 1990s Falls added to this "college" of directors, naming such theater artists as Mary Zimmerman, Chuck Smith, Henry Godinez and Regina Taylor to the Goodman's artistic staff. This group later expanded to include Brian Dennehy, Rebecca Gilman and Steve Scott, and is now known as the Goodman's Artistic Collective.
Highlights of Robert Falls' tenure at the Goodman have included dozens of world premieres and transfers of Goodman productions to other theaters. In his first season, Falls began his partnership with actor Brian Dennehy with the production of Bertolt Brecht's Galileo. Their work together since then includes Death of a Salesman and Long Day's Journey Into Night (both of which went on to Tony Award-winning presentations in New York), Desire Under the Elms and Hughie.
In the mid-1980s, concerned about the adequacy of its aging theater behind the Art Institute, the Goodman began to explore the possibility of a new facility. Led by Roche Schulfer and members of the Board of Trustees, the theater came to the conclusion that rebuilding on the site of the old theater was not a viable proposition and other locations in downtown Chicago were scouted. The City of Chicago, in the process of revitalizing the North Loop, urged the Goodman to consider the site of two old commercial theaters, the Selwyn and the Harris theaters, on North Dearborn Street. In the early 1990s the Goodman committed to building on the new site and fundraising efforts began. A major gift was received from Albert Ivar Goodman, a distant cousin of Kenneth Sawyer Goodman, and from his mother, Edith-Marie Appleton, which ensured that the theater would keep the Goodman name and allowed construction to begin. The new Goodman Theatre opened in December, 2000, with August Wilson's play, King Hedley II.
Other notable productions in the Goodman's recent history include Artistic Director Robert Falls' stagings of The Iceman Cometh starring Brian Dennehy, The Night of the Iguana with Cherry Jones and William Petersen, The Young Man from Atlanta starring Rip Torn and Shirley Knight and his reimagining of Chekhov's The Seagull; Frank Galati's world premiere of John Kander and Fred Ebb's musical The Visit, featuring a book by Terrence McNally and starring Chita Rivera; David Petrarca's world premiere production of Marvin's Room; Chuck Smith's acclaimed revivals of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom and The Amen Corner, as well the Chicago premieres of The Good Negro and Race under his direction; Mary Zimmerman's premiere productions of The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, Journey to the West, The Odyssey and the Philip Glass opera Galileo Galilei; the world premieres of Regina Taylor's Drowning Crow and Oo-Bla-Dee; the Chicago premieres of Zoot Suit and Boleros for the Disenchanted, both staged by Henry Godinez; all ten works in August Wilson's cycle of plays exploring the African American experience in the twentieth century, including the premiere productions of Seven Guitars, King Hedley II and Gem of the Ocean; the world premiere of Lynn Nottage's Ruined (also a Goodman commission); the world premiere of Sarah Ruhl's Stage Kiss; several premieres of David Mamet's plays, including American Buffalo and A Life in the Theatre; and premieres of Rebecca Gilman's plays Spinning into Butter, Boy Gets Girl, Blue Surge, Dollhouse and A True History of the Johnstown Flood.
Special events include the Goodman's annual holiday production of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, a Yuletide tradition for thousands of Chicago families, which celebrated its 34th production this season.
The Goodman's Department of Education and Community Engagement provides free programming for theaterlovers of all ages. The Student Subscription Series gives 2,700 Chicago public high school students a year the opportunity to attend free matinee performances and post-show discussions with actors, and provides copies of scripts, study guides, online resources and professional training seminars for teachers. Each summer, the General Theatre Studies program engages 14- to 19-year-old students from across Chicagoland in an intensive six-week theater training program, culminating in an original devised performance by the participants. Young women in their junior year of high school are eligible for the Cindy Bandle Young Critics program, a joint venture of the Goodman and the Association for Women Journalists, which provides training in theater criticism, mentoring from professional journalists and opportunities to interview stage stars like Carla Gugino and Brian Dennehy. Past participants in Goodman programs stay involved through the Youth Arts Council, acting as ambassadors for theater in their communities and schools. CONTEXT events engage our community in conversations and interactive experiences that both illuminate our productions and act as catalysts for deeper exploration. Using Goodman productions as a springboard, dramatic integration weekend seminars instruct teachers from across Chicago and across disciplines on how to use the arts to teach everything from science to English to history. In addition, the theater's internship program provides hands-on training for students, graduates and young professionals interested in careers in professional theater. The Goodman's newest program, GeNarrations, is a writing workshop for senior citizens. These six-week sessions are presented in collaboration with the City of Chicago’s Department of Family and Support Services and other community-based organizations.
In 2010, the Goodman celebrated 10 years in Chicago’s North Loop Theatre District. Its anniversary season opened with Mary Zimmerman’s new adaptation of Leonard Bernstein’s Candide and closed with David Henry Hwang’s world-premiere comedy Chinglish, which subsequently enjoyed a Broadway run. Staying true to its roots, Goodman Theatre continues its mission to enrich the American theater by producing bold and varied seasons and providing an essential cultural contribution to a diverse and vibrant city.
Second City:
he Second City opened its doors on a snowy Chicago night in December of 1959. No one could have guessed that this small cabaret theatre would become the most influential and prolific comedy theatre in the world.
With its roots in the improvisational games of Viola Spolin, The Second City developed an entirely unique way of creating and performing comedy. Founded by Spolin's son, Paul Sills, along with Howard Alk and Bernie Sahlins, The Second City was experimental and unconventional in its approach to both theatre and comedy. At a time when mother-in-law jokes were more the fashion, The Second City railed against the conformist culture with scenes that spoke to a younger generation.
The Broadway success of Mike Nichols and Elaine May – members of The Second City's predecessor, The Compass Players – put attention on the fledgling company. Soon, alumni of The Second City – such as Alan Arkin, Barbara Harris, Robert Klein, David Steinberg and Fred Willard – began to cement the theatre's reputation for developing the finest comedic voices of each and every generation. With the debut of NBC's Saturday Night Live, populated by Second City Alums John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd and Gilda Radner, the theatre became internationally known for its ever increasing roster of comedy superstars.
Soon, Second City's sister-theatre in Canada developed its own sketch comedy series, SCTV, hailed as one of the greatest comedy series of all time and featuring an all-star cast that included Martin Short, Andrea Martin, Catherine O'Hara, John Candy, Eugene Levy, Dave Thomas, Joe Flaherty and Rick Moranis.
By the 1980's, The Second City had become much more than a small cabaret theatre on Chicago's north side. In the middle of the decade, The Second City would begin a new era as Second City Toronto proprietors Andrew Alexander and Len Stuart would buy out Bernie Sahlins' interest in The Second City Chicago and set in motion a new era of innovation for the company.
Today, The Second City continues to produce the premiere comic talent in the industry. From Mike Myers to Steve Carell, Stephen Colbert to Tina Fey – The Second City imprint is felt across every entertainment medium. Additionally, The Second City has grown well beyond a single stage to become a diversified entertainment company. Second City Training Centers in Chicago, Toronto and Los Angeles teach thousands of students every week; four touring companies perform Second City revues all over North America and abroad; Second City Communications has become an industry leader in bringing improv-based methodologies to the corporate sector; and Second City continues to create unique media in television, film and the digital realm.
Second City Facts
Legendary comedy theatre with resident stages in Chicago, Toronto, and Touring Ensembles entertaining over 1,000,000 guests each year.
Training ground for a host of famous alumni including John Belushi, Mike Myers, Bill Murray, Gilda Radner, John Candy, Catherine O’Hara, Tina Fey, Steve Carell, Stephen Colbert, and over 500 more.
Winner of over 30 Joseph Jefferson Award nominations in Chicago and over 35 Dora Award nominations in Toronto honoring excellence in professional theatre.
Four International Touring Companies traveling around the country and world including Austria, The Netherlands, United Arab Emirates, Singapore and Iraq.
The largest training center for improvisation and acting in the country with 13,000 students a year at schools in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Toronto.
Presents over 400 corporate engagements a year through Second City Communications, with a focus on live event support and entertainment as well as designing and facilitating workshops on team building, communication and presentation skills.
Produced 185 television episodes of "SCTV" garnering an ACTRA award, two Emmy awards and over 13 Emmy Award nominations
The exclusive provider of improvisational comedy revues for Norwegian Cruise Line, with six ships currently hosting Second City companies – performing to 14,000 passengers per week.
Over $100,000 given each year in charitable donations to community and social programs.
Second City Education provides professional development training, in-class workshops and residencies, and performances to thousands of K-12 students, teachers and staff members each year.
Lookinglass Theatre:
History, Mission and Core Values
History
Lookingglass formed in 1988 when a group of ambitious college graduates created a process-driven theatre company and unique theatrical experience for the public. Our signature approach to developing plays involves long-term dedication to the development process, presenting work in a theatre with a configurable stage and seating that can change depending on the needs of the production. In 1992, the Lookingglass ensemble extended its vision to serve traditionally underserved populations by reaching out to Chicagoland’s diverse constituency through the creation of our education and community programs department. To date, we have produced 50 world premieres and have received 42 Jefferson Awards and citations.
Lookingglass propels its unique artistic vision with three primary venues: the creation of new work through gglassworks, the staging of world premieres on the Lookingglass Mainstage, and the outreach of our education and community programs. Lookingglass’ primary commitment is to produce new theatrical works. These bold, new works are created through the gglassworks program, run by Heidi Stillman, Director of Artistic Development and a founding ensemble member. Under Heidi’s leadership, potential scripts receive considerable development through intensive workshops and readings. The significant amount of time and resources invested in gglassworks has an enduring impact on the sustainability of the company and on our status as a premiere institution for the development of original work.
Mission
“Oh my, how curious everything is!” --- Alice
Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There
When Alice walked through the looking glass, she walked into a world beyond imagination. She walked into a world more involving and intoxicating than any movie or circus, more thrilling than a high-speed chase, more frightening than a child’s nightmare, and more beautiful than a thunderstorm on a hot summer night. She awoke with a new sense of herself in the world and her own power within it.
Reflected in Lewis Carroll’s achievement is the mission of the Lookingglass Theatre Company. Through theatre, which invites, even demands, interaction with its audience, our goal is to fire the imagination with love, to celebrate the human capacity to taste and smell, weep and laugh, create and destroy, and wake up where we first fell --- changed, charged and empowered.
The Lookingglass Theatre Company combines a physical and improvisational rehearsal process centered on ensemble with training in theatre, dance, music, and the circus arts. We seek to redefine the limits of theatrical experience and to make theatre exhilarating, inspirational, and accessible to all.
Core Values
Collaboration
From the seminal, self-produced collegiate production of Alice in Wonderland, Lookingglass has always believed that the power of the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Lookingglass sees immense value in group history and experience, a collective vision, the dynamics of teamwork and the importance of leadership within that collaborative construct. Each performance is a collaboration between artists, story and audience. Collaboration informs every aspect of how we produce theatre.
Transformation
Transformation is certainly at the core of all theatre and particularly vital to Lookingglass. Lookingglass uses visual metaphor, gesture and daring theatricality to create transcendent staging. Fiction and non-fiction are converted into stage pieces. Actors are often required to play multiple characters outside their traditional range. Even the newly-built theatre reflects the core value of transformation-- the infinitely flexible facility changes in configuration to best suit each new production. Transformation is reflected in the Lookingglass Mission Statement…to change, charge and empower.
Invention
Lookingglass seeks to redefine the limits of theatrical experience. The ensemble uses multi-disciplined arts training and an ambition for innovation to invent new ways to develop and tell stories.
Steppenwolf:
In January of 1974, in Highland Park, Illinois, Rick Argosh and Leslie Wilson approached their former high school classmate Gary Sinise about staging a production of Paul Zindel's And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little. Sinise had recently graduated from high school, and Rick and Leslie had one semester remaining. Steppenwolf co-founders Jeff Perry and Gary Sinise had met and become friends at Highland Park High School. Jeff was then attending college at Illinois State University where he had met co-founder Terry Kinney.
Gary agreed to be in the production of Miss Reardon, and sought out a space where he, Rick and Leslie could produce the play. Through a family friend, Gary secured the rights to perform in a Unitarian church on Half Day Road in Deerfield, Illinois, and the trio staged the inaugural production of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company. The name Steppenwolf came from the book by Herman Hesse, which Argosh was reading at the time.
Three more plays were produced under this first incarnation of Steppenwolf. Grease, which Sinise would produce, direct and act in; The Glass Menagerie, which Argosh directed with Sinise appearing as Tom; and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, also directed by Argosh, which was the first teaming of Terry Kinney, Jeff Perry and Gary Sinise, Steppenwolf’s three founders. During this production, in June of 1974, Kinney, Perry, and Sinise decided that when Kinney and Perry finished college they would find a permanent space and start a professional resident ensemble theater company.
Steppenwolf incorporated as a non-profit in 1975, with an expanded ensemble that included Terry Kinney, Jeff Perry, Gary Sinise, H.E. Baccus, Nancy Evans, Moira Harris, John Malkovich, Laurie Metcalf and Alan Wilder. The company took up residence in the basement of a Catholic school in Highland Park in the summer of 1976 and produced its first season of plays. In 1980 the company moved from Highland Park to the city of Chicago and expanded the ensemble.
Over the course of the 1980s, the company continued to expand, producing plays that went on to receive national and international attention. In 1991, Steppenwolf built its current theater at 1650 North Halsted Street in Chicago. Steppenwolf has now grown into a company which includes forty-three ensemble members, whose strengths include acting, directing, playwriting, and textual adaptation. Now in its fourth decade as a professional theater company, Steppenwolf has received unprecedented national and international recognition, including a series of Tony Awards, and The National Medal of Arts. Click here for a full timeline of notable, events, productions and awards at Steppenwolf.
Goodman Theate:
Goodman Theatre, recipient of the Special Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre, is internationally recognized for its artists, productions and educational programs. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Robert Falls and Executive Director Roche Schulfer, the Goodman is committed to producing classic and contemporary works, giving full voice to a wide range of artists and visions.
Goodman Theatre was established in July 1922, by a gift of $250,000 from William and Erna Goodman to the Art Institute of Chicago for the purpose of building a theater to memorialize their son, Kenneth Sawyer Goodman. Before his death at the age of 35 in the influenza epidemic of 1918, Kenneth Sawyer Goodman had written, published and produced a number of plays in non-commercial productions in Chicago, and had expressed his vision of an ideal theater, one that would combine professional training with the highest possible performance standards.
Four months after the gift was received, the Art Institute began construction of the new theater on the northeast corner of its property, at Monroe and Columbus Drive. They soon hired the theater's first artistic director, Thomas Woods Stevens, a former colleague of Kenneth Sawyer Goodman's and a noted educator who had established America's first theater degree-granting program at Carnegie Mellon University.
The new theater, encompassing a drama school and a professional acting company, opened its doors on October 20, 1925. Three of Goodman's one-act plays were presented at the theater's dedication ceremony. Two nights later the Goodman began its first regular season with John Galsworthy's The Forest. Stevens built the new theater's repertory with a mix of classics, contemporary hits and experimental and new plays, a formula that the theater has generally adhered to ever since.
Stevens led the Goodman for five years before resigning in 1930 over a dispute about the deficit the theater had accumulated. The Art Institute replaced him with Hubert Osbourne, a former student of Stevens', who ran the theater for a year until the Art Institute decided that the professional acting company would prove too costly to maintain. The professional acting company was disbanded, but the Art Institute kept the doors of the drama school open.
Maurice Gnesin, who Stevens hired during the 1929/1930 Season, stepped in as the new head of the Goodman School of Drama when Stevens resigned. A scholarly Russian, Gnesin ran the school for the next 27 years, aided by his colleague and fellow Russian, the actor David Itkin. The Goodman School built a formidable reputation over the following decades and graduated many stellar theater artists, including Karl Malden, Sam Wanamaker, Geraldine Page, Shelley Berman, Harvey Korman, José Quintero, Linda Hunt and Joe Mantegna. The school was also noted for its children's theater, run for many years by Charlotte Chorpenning, whose adaptations of children's stories made her the most produced playwright in Goodman Theatre history. Thousands of Chicagoans got their first taste of theater at the Goodman's weekend matinees.
In 1957 Maurice Gnesin passed away and David Itkin retired. The Art Institute offered the artistic directorship to John Reich, a native Austrian who had trained with legendary director Max Reinhardt. Reich accepted the position under the condition that the theater commit to re-establishing the professional acting company. Over the next decade, Reich slowly rebuilt the Goodman's subscribership, bringing in stars to lead casts of student actors and attracting new attention to the theater. In the fall of 1969, the Goodman opened the new season featuring the first fully professional acting company at the theater in nearly 40 years. But maintaining a resident company of professionals proved expensive and led to the largest deficits in the theater's history. Two years later, the theater began hiring actors on a show-by-show basis. In 1972, John Reich was asked to resign. A new managing director, Ken Myers, brought in during Reich's last year to oversee the theater's business side and ran the theater for a year before resigning himself.
In 1973, William Woodman, a director with considerable experience in regional theaters, was appointed artistic director. Woodman saw the theater through a period of restructuring. In 1976, the Goodman separated itself from the Art Institute, incorporating as the Chicago Theatre Group, Inc, which allowed it to pursue fundraising independently. In 1978, the theater divested itself of the Goodman School, which was acquired by DePaul University. Woodman also instituted Stage 2, a venue for new work within the Goodman framework. Gregory Mosher, Woodman's assistant, and Roche Schulfer, a young business office assistant, were placed in charge of Stage 2, which became a proving ground for up-and-coming Chicago actors, directors and writers, one of whom was David Mamet, whose play American Buffalo premiered at Stage 2 in 1975.
After running the Goodman for five seasons, William Woodman resigned in 1978 and Gregory Mosher was appointed artistic director. A year later Roche Schulfer was appointed managing director. Mosher led the theater through the 1984/1985 Season, bringing much new work to the Goodman, including plays by Nobel Prize winners Wole Soyinka and Derek Walcott, and new plays by American masters Edward Albee and Tennessee Williams, including Williams' last produced play, A House Not Meant to Stand. In 1985 Mosher left the Goodman to take over Lincoln Center Theater in New York City.
The Goodman replaced Mosher with Robert Falls, a young director who was a product of the off-Loop theater boom of the 1970s. Falls, who was born in downstate Illinois and grew up in the Chicago suburbs, left the University of Illinois and immediately began directing in Chicago. At the age of 23 he was appointed to lead Wisdom Bridge Theatre, where he stayed for eight years before being named the Goodman's artistic director. Falls brought with him to the Goodman two colleagues from the off-Loop theater scene, Frank Galati and Michael Maggio, to serve as associates, and a young director from New York, David Petrarca. In the 1990s Falls added to this "college" of directors, naming such theater artists as Mary Zimmerman, Chuck Smith, Henry Godinez and Regina Taylor to the Goodman's artistic staff. This group later expanded to include Brian Dennehy, Rebecca Gilman and Steve Scott, and is now known as the Goodman's Artistic Collective.
Highlights of Robert Falls' tenure at the Goodman have included dozens of world premieres and transfers of Goodman productions to other theaters. In his first season, Falls began his partnership with actor Brian Dennehy with the production of Bertolt Brecht's Galileo. Their work together since then includes Death of a Salesman and Long Day's Journey Into Night (both of which went on to Tony Award-winning presentations in New York), Desire Under the Elms and Hughie.
In the mid-1980s, concerned about the adequacy of its aging theater behind the Art Institute, the Goodman began to explore the possibility of a new facility. Led by Roche Schulfer and members of the Board of Trustees, the theater came to the conclusion that rebuilding on the site of the old theater was not a viable proposition and other locations in downtown Chicago were scouted. The City of Chicago, in the process of revitalizing the North Loop, urged the Goodman to consider the site of two old commercial theaters, the Selwyn and the Harris theaters, on North Dearborn Street. In the early 1990s the Goodman committed to building on the new site and fundraising efforts began. A major gift was received from Albert Ivar Goodman, a distant cousin of Kenneth Sawyer Goodman, and from his mother, Edith-Marie Appleton, which ensured that the theater would keep the Goodman name and allowed construction to begin. The new Goodman Theatre opened in December, 2000, with August Wilson's play, King Hedley II.
Other notable productions in the Goodman's recent history include Artistic Director Robert Falls' stagings of The Iceman Cometh starring Brian Dennehy, The Night of the Iguana with Cherry Jones and William Petersen, The Young Man from Atlanta starring Rip Torn and Shirley Knight and his reimagining of Chekhov's The Seagull; Frank Galati's world premiere of John Kander and Fred Ebb's musical The Visit, featuring a book by Terrence McNally and starring Chita Rivera; David Petrarca's world premiere production of Marvin's Room; Chuck Smith's acclaimed revivals of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom and The Amen Corner, as well the Chicago premieres of The Good Negro and Race under his direction; Mary Zimmerman's premiere productions of The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, Journey to the West, The Odyssey and the Philip Glass opera Galileo Galilei; the world premieres of Regina Taylor's Drowning Crow and Oo-Bla-Dee; the Chicago premieres of Zoot Suit and Boleros for the Disenchanted, both staged by Henry Godinez; all ten works in August Wilson's cycle of plays exploring the African American experience in the twentieth century, including the premiere productions of Seven Guitars, King Hedley II and Gem of the Ocean; the world premiere of Lynn Nottage's Ruined (also a Goodman commission); the world premiere of Sarah Ruhl's Stage Kiss; several premieres of David Mamet's plays, including American Buffalo and A Life in the Theatre; and premieres of Rebecca Gilman's plays Spinning into Butter, Boy Gets Girl, Blue Surge, Dollhouse and A True History of the Johnstown Flood.
Special events include the Goodman's annual holiday production of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, a Yuletide tradition for thousands of Chicago families, which celebrated its 34th production this season.
The Goodman's Department of Education and Community Engagement provides free programming for theaterlovers of all ages. The Student Subscription Series gives 2,700 Chicago public high school students a year the opportunity to attend free matinee performances and post-show discussions with actors, and provides copies of scripts, study guides, online resources and professional training seminars for teachers. Each summer, the General Theatre Studies program engages 14- to 19-year-old students from across Chicagoland in an intensive six-week theater training program, culminating in an original devised performance by the participants. Young women in their junior year of high school are eligible for the Cindy Bandle Young Critics program, a joint venture of the Goodman and the Association for Women Journalists, which provides training in theater criticism, mentoring from professional journalists and opportunities to interview stage stars like Carla Gugino and Brian Dennehy. Past participants in Goodman programs stay involved through the Youth Arts Council, acting as ambassadors for theater in their communities and schools. CONTEXT events engage our community in conversations and interactive experiences that both illuminate our productions and act as catalysts for deeper exploration. Using Goodman productions as a springboard, dramatic integration weekend seminars instruct teachers from across Chicago and across disciplines on how to use the arts to teach everything from science to English to history. In addition, the theater's internship program provides hands-on training for students, graduates and young professionals interested in careers in professional theater. The Goodman's newest program, GeNarrations, is a writing workshop for senior citizens. These six-week sessions are presented in collaboration with the City of Chicago’s Department of Family and Support Services and other community-based organizations.
In 2010, the Goodman celebrated 10 years in Chicago’s North Loop Theatre District. Its anniversary season opened with Mary Zimmerman’s new adaptation of Leonard Bernstein’s Candide and closed with David Henry Hwang’s world-premiere comedy Chinglish, which subsequently enjoyed a Broadway run. Staying true to its roots, Goodman Theatre continues its mission to enrich the American theater by producing bold and varied seasons and providing an essential cultural contribution to a diverse and vibrant city.
Second City:
he Second City opened its doors on a snowy Chicago night in December of 1959. No one could have guessed that this small cabaret theatre would become the most influential and prolific comedy theatre in the world.
With its roots in the improvisational games of Viola Spolin, The Second City developed an entirely unique way of creating and performing comedy. Founded by Spolin's son, Paul Sills, along with Howard Alk and Bernie Sahlins, The Second City was experimental and unconventional in its approach to both theatre and comedy. At a time when mother-in-law jokes were more the fashion, The Second City railed against the conformist culture with scenes that spoke to a younger generation.
The Broadway success of Mike Nichols and Elaine May – members of The Second City's predecessor, The Compass Players – put attention on the fledgling company. Soon, alumni of The Second City – such as Alan Arkin, Barbara Harris, Robert Klein, David Steinberg and Fred Willard – began to cement the theatre's reputation for developing the finest comedic voices of each and every generation. With the debut of NBC's Saturday Night Live, populated by Second City Alums John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd and Gilda Radner, the theatre became internationally known for its ever increasing roster of comedy superstars.
Soon, Second City's sister-theatre in Canada developed its own sketch comedy series, SCTV, hailed as one of the greatest comedy series of all time and featuring an all-star cast that included Martin Short, Andrea Martin, Catherine O'Hara, John Candy, Eugene Levy, Dave Thomas, Joe Flaherty and Rick Moranis.
By the 1980's, The Second City had become much more than a small cabaret theatre on Chicago's north side. In the middle of the decade, The Second City would begin a new era as Second City Toronto proprietors Andrew Alexander and Len Stuart would buy out Bernie Sahlins' interest in The Second City Chicago and set in motion a new era of innovation for the company.
Today, The Second City continues to produce the premiere comic talent in the industry. From Mike Myers to Steve Carell, Stephen Colbert to Tina Fey – The Second City imprint is felt across every entertainment medium. Additionally, The Second City has grown well beyond a single stage to become a diversified entertainment company. Second City Training Centers in Chicago, Toronto and Los Angeles teach thousands of students every week; four touring companies perform Second City revues all over North America and abroad; Second City Communications has become an industry leader in bringing improv-based methodologies to the corporate sector; and Second City continues to create unique media in television, film and the digital realm.
Second City Facts
Legendary comedy theatre with resident stages in Chicago, Toronto, and Touring Ensembles entertaining over 1,000,000 guests each year.
Training ground for a host of famous alumni including John Belushi, Mike Myers, Bill Murray, Gilda Radner, John Candy, Catherine O’Hara, Tina Fey, Steve Carell, Stephen Colbert, and over 500 more.
Winner of over 30 Joseph Jefferson Award nominations in Chicago and over 35 Dora Award nominations in Toronto honoring excellence in professional theatre.
Four International Touring Companies traveling around the country and world including Austria, The Netherlands, United Arab Emirates, Singapore and Iraq.
The largest training center for improvisation and acting in the country with 13,000 students a year at schools in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Toronto.
Presents over 400 corporate engagements a year through Second City Communications, with a focus on live event support and entertainment as well as designing and facilitating workshops on team building, communication and presentation skills.
Produced 185 television episodes of "SCTV" garnering an ACTRA award, two Emmy awards and over 13 Emmy Award nominations
The exclusive provider of improvisational comedy revues for Norwegian Cruise Line, with six ships currently hosting Second City companies – performing to 14,000 passengers per week.
Over $100,000 given each year in charitable donations to community and social programs.
Second City Education provides professional development training, in-class workshops and residencies, and performances to thousands of K-12 students, teachers and staff members each year.
Lookinglass Theatre:
History, Mission and Core Values
History
Lookingglass formed in 1988 when a group of ambitious college graduates created a process-driven theatre company and unique theatrical experience for the public. Our signature approach to developing plays involves long-term dedication to the development process, presenting work in a theatre with a configurable stage and seating that can change depending on the needs of the production. In 1992, the Lookingglass ensemble extended its vision to serve traditionally underserved populations by reaching out to Chicagoland’s diverse constituency through the creation of our education and community programs department. To date, we have produced 50 world premieres and have received 42 Jefferson Awards and citations.
Lookingglass propels its unique artistic vision with three primary venues: the creation of new work through gglassworks, the staging of world premieres on the Lookingglass Mainstage, and the outreach of our education and community programs. Lookingglass’ primary commitment is to produce new theatrical works. These bold, new works are created through the gglassworks program, run by Heidi Stillman, Director of Artistic Development and a founding ensemble member. Under Heidi’s leadership, potential scripts receive considerable development through intensive workshops and readings. The significant amount of time and resources invested in gglassworks has an enduring impact on the sustainability of the company and on our status as a premiere institution for the development of original work.
Mission
“Oh my, how curious everything is!” --- Alice
Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There
When Alice walked through the looking glass, she walked into a world beyond imagination. She walked into a world more involving and intoxicating than any movie or circus, more thrilling than a high-speed chase, more frightening than a child’s nightmare, and more beautiful than a thunderstorm on a hot summer night. She awoke with a new sense of herself in the world and her own power within it.
Reflected in Lewis Carroll’s achievement is the mission of the Lookingglass Theatre Company. Through theatre, which invites, even demands, interaction with its audience, our goal is to fire the imagination with love, to celebrate the human capacity to taste and smell, weep and laugh, create and destroy, and wake up where we first fell --- changed, charged and empowered.
The Lookingglass Theatre Company combines a physical and improvisational rehearsal process centered on ensemble with training in theatre, dance, music, and the circus arts. We seek to redefine the limits of theatrical experience and to make theatre exhilarating, inspirational, and accessible to all.
Core Values
Collaboration
From the seminal, self-produced collegiate production of Alice in Wonderland, Lookingglass has always believed that the power of the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Lookingglass sees immense value in group history and experience, a collective vision, the dynamics of teamwork and the importance of leadership within that collaborative construct. Each performance is a collaboration between artists, story and audience. Collaboration informs every aspect of how we produce theatre.
Transformation
Transformation is certainly at the core of all theatre and particularly vital to Lookingglass. Lookingglass uses visual metaphor, gesture and daring theatricality to create transcendent staging. Fiction and non-fiction are converted into stage pieces. Actors are often required to play multiple characters outside their traditional range. Even the newly-built theatre reflects the core value of transformation-- the infinitely flexible facility changes in configuration to best suit each new production. Transformation is reflected in the Lookingglass Mission Statement…to change, charge and empower.
Invention
Lookingglass seeks to redefine the limits of theatrical experience. The ensemble uses multi-disciplined arts training and an ambition for innovation to invent new ways to develop and tell stories.
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History of Improv
The History of Improv Theatre by Rachel McGrath
The theatrical experiences that capture an audience’s attention implore them to examine their human experience as well as further investigate the big questions asked by the playwright, often tackling such universal topics as religion, love, honor, and the triumph of good over evil. While notable playwrights throughout history have successfully captured in the written word the sufferings and joys of the human condition, there is no artistic forum that more accurately, or fleetingly, depicts the present state of society and bonds an audience than improvisation. Unlike the foundations of professional acting itself, there are few historical records to clearly pinpoint an official beginning of improvisation. This is because, according to Uta Hagen in A Challenge for the Actor, a degree of improvisation is involved in defining each moment of our life.
However unclear the beginning of the art of improvisation may be in the academia of Theatre History, its influence on contemporary theatre as well as the crucial role it plays in the once popular (and still culturally referenced) Commedia dell’Arte suggests that while it mumbles indistinct beginnings, the art of Improvisation is a necessary incorporation into the educational curriculum vita of an aspiring actor.
To understand the importance of improvisation in a theatrical education, one must first look at the first major occurrences of improvisation throughout history. There have been texts created at the moment of performance, which is referred to as improvisatory presentation, which was likely how the Atellan farce – improvised farces that dealt with family problems as well as poking fun at historical and mythological figures – came to be so popular among the Roman citizens. The Atellan farce became a literary genre in the first century B.C.E as Roman authors began to write down the humorous and unplanned antics that occurred on stage, making the Atellan farce arguably the first well known improv troupe on record in theatre history. This is not to say that there were no improvised theatrical performances before the Atellan farces on record; On the contrary, as far back as the 10th century B.C.E there have been historical references to secular entertainers in China, as well as court jesters. Additionally, if one looks at Greece in the 6th century B.C.E they will find Dithyrambic Improvisations. Greek tragedy itself may have originated from dithyrambs, songs sung in praise of Dionysus at the annual City Dionysia. As Edwin Duerr states in The Length and Depth of Acting, “At first, as choral leader of the dithyramb, a hymn usually honoring Dionysus, the Greek priest led a chorus of fifty in narrating, largely by improvisation, some incident in the deity’s life.” While the poet Arion is credited for developing the dithyramb into formalized narrative sung by a chorus, it is said to have begun as frenzied improvisations in 600 B.C.E.
The Atellan Farces and Beyond
Even directly before the Atellan farce came about, there existed in Rome the Etruscan Dramatic Ceremonies and dancing. The point remains, however, that the Atellan farces are the earliest well known innovations of improvisation in theatrical performance. This paved the way for future generations of artists, giving them inspiration and information to build upon the groundbreaking theatrical advances of the ancient Greek and Roman eras.
Following the Atellan farces, a numerous amount of improvisational performance pops up throughout history. This includes the Fesciennine Verses in Rome consisting of improvised abusive dialogue exchanged between clowns during harvest events, which Horace claims is the very derivative of Latin drama. In the same vein, the publication of Aristotle’s Poetics noted the role of improvisation in the birth of drama itself in roughly 335 B.C.E. Small appearances and literary mentions aside, it is not until the arrival of the Italian Renaissance, the cultural rebirth of Italian society, that the art of improvisation makes a roaring comeback into the historical records, in the form of the Italian Commedia dell’Arte; or “a play of professional artists.” The Italians in the Renaissance period were very much inspired by the ancient Greek and Roman theatre. According to Edwin Wilson and Alvin Goldfarb in Living Theatre: A History of Theatre, “The renewal of interest in classical dramatic traditions was inspired by several developments: (1) a revival of the teaching of Greek by such noted scholars as Manuel Chrysolaras at the close of the 1300s; (2) a transfer in 1453 of surviving Greek and Roman manuscripts to Italy after the fall of Constantinople, which had been the center of the eastern Roman empire; (3) the publication of all the extant plays attributed to Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Plautus, Terence, and Seneca; and (4) the dissemination of the writings of Aristotle and Horace. (132)”
Inspiration of the Ancient Greeks
It stands to reason, then, that the development of Commedia dell’Arte was inspired by the improvisational innovations of the Atellan farces and mimes in the Greek and Roman eras. Beginning early in the 1500s and flourishing by 1550-1575, this unwritten comedy featured a series of dialogue completely made up on the spot, though the characters, plot and locale were pre-set. Similar to the Atellan farces, which featured recurring stereotyped characters wearing masks and stock costumes, the Commedia dell’Arte featured a cast of stock characters, all but the lovers (the innamorati and the innamorate) and the serving maid. The characters were pre-set, as well as the situation and locale (the latter two of which are generally pre-set in modern day improvisation as well), and the majority of scenarios had been performed so many times that the actors in the troupe had an arsenal of familiar scenarios and eventually got into a groove together as far as playing off of each other is concerned. The majority of these comics considered themselves anti writing, and anti-author. In fact, in between 1618 and 1622, Basilio Locatelli gathered one hundred and three of these improvised scenarios. In the preface of his published work of the aforementioned improvised scenarios, he stated that “If in these times I have not observed all the desirable precepts of poetic art, remember that they are intended for extempore representation.” This is to say that the improvised art that occurs at said guild performances (as that is the translation of arte) is made up on the spot, and is representative especially of that moment in time or history. To take it out of the moment it was birthed in, is to take it out of context and is impossible to be properly appreciated for the genius it is. This is quite literally Locatelli’s early 1600s (and eloquently dressed up) version of “You had to be there, man.”
Commedia dell'Arte
The stock characters in Commedia dell’Arte almost always consisted of ten actors – seven men and three women. As previously stated, the characters were set in place, (Names were fluid, however, especially among the innamorate or the innamorato) as were the events that took place once players were given a location and thin line of plot to work with. Excluding the innamorati, the two unmasked characters with the only character motivation being to fall in love, the characters are as follows, according to Wilson and Goldfarb in Living Theatre: History of Theatre: “A lecherous, miserly old Venetian, Pantalone; a foolish pedant who was always involved in his neighbors’ affairs, Dottore; a cowardly, braggart soldier, Capitano; and servants known as zanni, who were sometimes sly and sometimes foolish. Arlecchino, or Harlequin, was the most popular, with other well-known characters including Brighella,Scopamuccia, and Pulcinella.
While the beginning of the history of improvised dramatics was more scattered, the emergence of Commedia dell’Arte in the Italian renaissance was a true marker for improvisational history – as the Commedia dell’Arte is the art form most commonly referred to when supporting or educating one on the early days of improvisation, it stands to reason that in the education of improvisation, the mention of Commedia dell’Arte is not far behind in the dialogue between instructor and student. One could go so far as to say that in delving into the art of improvisation, the discovery of the heart of theatre and performance is at one’s fingertips.
The stock characters in Commedia dell’Arte – which were originally evolved from characters of the ancient mimes – were later refined and furbished into concrete characters in plays by later playwrights. In addition to this, stark comparisons can be drawn from the drama of Commedia dell’Arte to dramatic works as recent as Charlie Chaplin, the Marx Brothers, Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, and the Three Stooges. All of these classic (for the recent time period) entertainment vehicles feature the stock characters, especially the Marx Brothers, who employ the stock characters with mild alterations, stock costumes – Groucho’s stoop walk and always present cigar, Harpo’s horn and long trench coat, etc., and even the standard lazzi, slapstick comedy and physical humor. As with Commedia dell’Arte, while the actors had specific characters and a thin plot line to follow, the majority of their interactions was improvised.
As odd as it may seem to cite Roman or Greek influence in a dramatic form made up literally on the spot, regardless of the subject matter dealt with in the present tense (as that is purely at the mercy of the state of society in the historical period – while the Atellan farces poked fun at mythological figures, modern day Improv Troupes might hark to the Oil Crisis, or Occupy Wall Street), the art of improvisation itself is as old, if not older than, Aristotle himself. This art form is unique in that way – when watching an Improv performance in modern day, one is witnessing literally the birth of new ideas and dramatic interactions before their very eyes, as well as an art form that is possibly as old as social interactions themselves. As a dramatic scholar must entertain both new and old ideas at the same time, as well as have a cohesive understanding of the origins of theatre and the influences theatrical predecessors had upon their followers, there is no other component of an educational curriculum that provides this as well or as innovatively as the study of Improvisation – an art as old as time, and as recent as one would like it to be.
http://rachelmcgrath.hubpages.com/hub/The-History-of-Improv-Theatre
The theatrical experiences that capture an audience’s attention implore them to examine their human experience as well as further investigate the big questions asked by the playwright, often tackling such universal topics as religion, love, honor, and the triumph of good over evil. While notable playwrights throughout history have successfully captured in the written word the sufferings and joys of the human condition, there is no artistic forum that more accurately, or fleetingly, depicts the present state of society and bonds an audience than improvisation. Unlike the foundations of professional acting itself, there are few historical records to clearly pinpoint an official beginning of improvisation. This is because, according to Uta Hagen in A Challenge for the Actor, a degree of improvisation is involved in defining each moment of our life.
However unclear the beginning of the art of improvisation may be in the academia of Theatre History, its influence on contemporary theatre as well as the crucial role it plays in the once popular (and still culturally referenced) Commedia dell’Arte suggests that while it mumbles indistinct beginnings, the art of Improvisation is a necessary incorporation into the educational curriculum vita of an aspiring actor.
To understand the importance of improvisation in a theatrical education, one must first look at the first major occurrences of improvisation throughout history. There have been texts created at the moment of performance, which is referred to as improvisatory presentation, which was likely how the Atellan farce – improvised farces that dealt with family problems as well as poking fun at historical and mythological figures – came to be so popular among the Roman citizens. The Atellan farce became a literary genre in the first century B.C.E as Roman authors began to write down the humorous and unplanned antics that occurred on stage, making the Atellan farce arguably the first well known improv troupe on record in theatre history. This is not to say that there were no improvised theatrical performances before the Atellan farces on record; On the contrary, as far back as the 10th century B.C.E there have been historical references to secular entertainers in China, as well as court jesters. Additionally, if one looks at Greece in the 6th century B.C.E they will find Dithyrambic Improvisations. Greek tragedy itself may have originated from dithyrambs, songs sung in praise of Dionysus at the annual City Dionysia. As Edwin Duerr states in The Length and Depth of Acting, “At first, as choral leader of the dithyramb, a hymn usually honoring Dionysus, the Greek priest led a chorus of fifty in narrating, largely by improvisation, some incident in the deity’s life.” While the poet Arion is credited for developing the dithyramb into formalized narrative sung by a chorus, it is said to have begun as frenzied improvisations in 600 B.C.E.
The Atellan Farces and Beyond
Even directly before the Atellan farce came about, there existed in Rome the Etruscan Dramatic Ceremonies and dancing. The point remains, however, that the Atellan farces are the earliest well known innovations of improvisation in theatrical performance. This paved the way for future generations of artists, giving them inspiration and information to build upon the groundbreaking theatrical advances of the ancient Greek and Roman eras.
Following the Atellan farces, a numerous amount of improvisational performance pops up throughout history. This includes the Fesciennine Verses in Rome consisting of improvised abusive dialogue exchanged between clowns during harvest events, which Horace claims is the very derivative of Latin drama. In the same vein, the publication of Aristotle’s Poetics noted the role of improvisation in the birth of drama itself in roughly 335 B.C.E. Small appearances and literary mentions aside, it is not until the arrival of the Italian Renaissance, the cultural rebirth of Italian society, that the art of improvisation makes a roaring comeback into the historical records, in the form of the Italian Commedia dell’Arte; or “a play of professional artists.” The Italians in the Renaissance period were very much inspired by the ancient Greek and Roman theatre. According to Edwin Wilson and Alvin Goldfarb in Living Theatre: A History of Theatre, “The renewal of interest in classical dramatic traditions was inspired by several developments: (1) a revival of the teaching of Greek by such noted scholars as Manuel Chrysolaras at the close of the 1300s; (2) a transfer in 1453 of surviving Greek and Roman manuscripts to Italy after the fall of Constantinople, which had been the center of the eastern Roman empire; (3) the publication of all the extant plays attributed to Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Plautus, Terence, and Seneca; and (4) the dissemination of the writings of Aristotle and Horace. (132)”
Inspiration of the Ancient Greeks
It stands to reason, then, that the development of Commedia dell’Arte was inspired by the improvisational innovations of the Atellan farces and mimes in the Greek and Roman eras. Beginning early in the 1500s and flourishing by 1550-1575, this unwritten comedy featured a series of dialogue completely made up on the spot, though the characters, plot and locale were pre-set. Similar to the Atellan farces, which featured recurring stereotyped characters wearing masks and stock costumes, the Commedia dell’Arte featured a cast of stock characters, all but the lovers (the innamorati and the innamorate) and the serving maid. The characters were pre-set, as well as the situation and locale (the latter two of which are generally pre-set in modern day improvisation as well), and the majority of scenarios had been performed so many times that the actors in the troupe had an arsenal of familiar scenarios and eventually got into a groove together as far as playing off of each other is concerned. The majority of these comics considered themselves anti writing, and anti-author. In fact, in between 1618 and 1622, Basilio Locatelli gathered one hundred and three of these improvised scenarios. In the preface of his published work of the aforementioned improvised scenarios, he stated that “If in these times I have not observed all the desirable precepts of poetic art, remember that they are intended for extempore representation.” This is to say that the improvised art that occurs at said guild performances (as that is the translation of arte) is made up on the spot, and is representative especially of that moment in time or history. To take it out of the moment it was birthed in, is to take it out of context and is impossible to be properly appreciated for the genius it is. This is quite literally Locatelli’s early 1600s (and eloquently dressed up) version of “You had to be there, man.”
Commedia dell'Arte
The stock characters in Commedia dell’Arte almost always consisted of ten actors – seven men and three women. As previously stated, the characters were set in place, (Names were fluid, however, especially among the innamorate or the innamorato) as were the events that took place once players were given a location and thin line of plot to work with. Excluding the innamorati, the two unmasked characters with the only character motivation being to fall in love, the characters are as follows, according to Wilson and Goldfarb in Living Theatre: History of Theatre: “A lecherous, miserly old Venetian, Pantalone; a foolish pedant who was always involved in his neighbors’ affairs, Dottore; a cowardly, braggart soldier, Capitano; and servants known as zanni, who were sometimes sly and sometimes foolish. Arlecchino, or Harlequin, was the most popular, with other well-known characters including Brighella,Scopamuccia, and Pulcinella.
While the beginning of the history of improvised dramatics was more scattered, the emergence of Commedia dell’Arte in the Italian renaissance was a true marker for improvisational history – as the Commedia dell’Arte is the art form most commonly referred to when supporting or educating one on the early days of improvisation, it stands to reason that in the education of improvisation, the mention of Commedia dell’Arte is not far behind in the dialogue between instructor and student. One could go so far as to say that in delving into the art of improvisation, the discovery of the heart of theatre and performance is at one’s fingertips.
The stock characters in Commedia dell’Arte – which were originally evolved from characters of the ancient mimes – were later refined and furbished into concrete characters in plays by later playwrights. In addition to this, stark comparisons can be drawn from the drama of Commedia dell’Arte to dramatic works as recent as Charlie Chaplin, the Marx Brothers, Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, and the Three Stooges. All of these classic (for the recent time period) entertainment vehicles feature the stock characters, especially the Marx Brothers, who employ the stock characters with mild alterations, stock costumes – Groucho’s stoop walk and always present cigar, Harpo’s horn and long trench coat, etc., and even the standard lazzi, slapstick comedy and physical humor. As with Commedia dell’Arte, while the actors had specific characters and a thin plot line to follow, the majority of their interactions was improvised.
As odd as it may seem to cite Roman or Greek influence in a dramatic form made up literally on the spot, regardless of the subject matter dealt with in the present tense (as that is purely at the mercy of the state of society in the historical period – while the Atellan farces poked fun at mythological figures, modern day Improv Troupes might hark to the Oil Crisis, or Occupy Wall Street), the art of improvisation itself is as old, if not older than, Aristotle himself. This art form is unique in that way – when watching an Improv performance in modern day, one is witnessing literally the birth of new ideas and dramatic interactions before their very eyes, as well as an art form that is possibly as old as social interactions themselves. As a dramatic scholar must entertain both new and old ideas at the same time, as well as have a cohesive understanding of the origins of theatre and the influences theatrical predecessors had upon their followers, there is no other component of an educational curriculum that provides this as well or as innovatively as the study of Improvisation – an art as old as time, and as recent as one would like it to be.
http://rachelmcgrath.hubpages.com/hub/The-History-of-Improv-Theatre
Class Policy
Late work:
1. Is accepted on a case by case base only and can be rejected at anytime.
2. If accepted a full letter grade deduction is made for every day late.
3. Fifty percent is the highest grade possible on any work more than four days late.
4. No performance can be done late. Performance must be done on the day it is scheduled. If a performance is not done on the scheduled day then the highest grade possible is fifty percent.
5. Work is always due the day it has been posted. If you have an absence the day work is due it is the students responsibility to turn it into the instructor. If the student does not do so the work is late.
Tardy consequences.
1. When late studnent must sign the tardy form at the door.
2. Late more than 10 minutes students must double the amount of time missed and serve that amount of time in detention.
3. First three tardies are recorded.
4. Fourth tardy student must meet serve a 15 minute detention.
5. Fifth tardy student is referred to the peer council.
6. Sixth tardy students are referred to administration to serve one hour detention. (additional consequences may apply)
Class Participation Grades
1. Ten points are given in weeks where stage work or project development is scheduled.
2. Unexcused absences automatically reduces the score by 5 points.
3. Each day of non participation results in a 2 point deduction.
4. Some days specific instructions are given for earning participation points and will be clearly outlined.
1. Is accepted on a case by case base only and can be rejected at anytime.
2. If accepted a full letter grade deduction is made for every day late.
3. Fifty percent is the highest grade possible on any work more than four days late.
4. No performance can be done late. Performance must be done on the day it is scheduled. If a performance is not done on the scheduled day then the highest grade possible is fifty percent.
5. Work is always due the day it has been posted. If you have an absence the day work is due it is the students responsibility to turn it into the instructor. If the student does not do so the work is late.
Tardy consequences.
1. When late studnent must sign the tardy form at the door.
2. Late more than 10 minutes students must double the amount of time missed and serve that amount of time in detention.
3. First three tardies are recorded.
4. Fourth tardy student must meet serve a 15 minute detention.
5. Fifth tardy student is referred to the peer council.
6. Sixth tardy students are referred to administration to serve one hour detention. (additional consequences may apply)
Class Participation Grades
1. Ten points are given in weeks where stage work or project development is scheduled.
2. Unexcused absences automatically reduces the score by 5 points.
3. Each day of non participation results in a 2 point deduction.
4. Some days specific instructions are given for earning participation points and will be clearly outlined.
Improvisation
Theatre Jobs
Theatre Arts Jobs
- Playwrights
- Producers
- Directors
- Artistic Directors
- Designers
- set
- costume
- make-up
- props / special effects artists
- lighting
- Actors / Acting
- Stage Crew
- Prop Master
- Set crew
- carpenters
- lighting crew
- light and sound board operators
- Costume
- Make-up
- House Crew
References Letter Request
Letters of Recommendations:
In order for me to write a letter of recommendation you must send me an email requesting it and include the following.
1. Information regarding the request. What is the request and what type of letter.
2. What are your goals at this college or for this scholarship AND what are your long term asspirations?
3. What information or types of information do you want me to highlight?
4. Include an inside address (the reciepents address) typed in a manner that it can be copied and pasted into my letter. Failure to include this properly disqualify you for a letter.
5. Leave in my office mailbox an addressed envelop for me to mail the letter. Do not include a return address.
6. Allow up to two weeks for your letter to be sent.
7. Confirm via email that your letter was sent two weeks after the request.
In order for me to write a letter of recommendation you must send me an email requesting it and include the following.
1. Information regarding the request. What is the request and what type of letter.
2. What are your goals at this college or for this scholarship AND what are your long term asspirations?
3. What information or types of information do you want me to highlight?
4. Include an inside address (the reciepents address) typed in a manner that it can be copied and pasted into my letter. Failure to include this properly disqualify you for a letter.
5. Leave in my office mailbox an addressed envelop for me to mail the letter. Do not include a return address.
6. Allow up to two weeks for your letter to be sent.
7. Confirm via email that your letter was sent two weeks after the request.