University of New Hampshire University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository Doctoral Dissertations Student Scholarship Spring 2021 An Improv-able Legacy: Shining The Composition Spotlight on Viola Spolin’s Improvisational Pedagogy Cory Richard Chamberlain University of New Hampshire, Durham Follow this and additional works at: https://scholars.unh.edu/dissertation Recommended Citation Chamberlain, Cory Richard, "An Improv-able Legacy: Shining The Composition Spotlight on Viola Spolin’s Improvisational Pedagogy" (2021). Doctoral Dissertations. 2562. https://scholars.unh.edu/dissertation/2562 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Scholarship at University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. An Improv-able Legacy: Shining The Composition Spotlight on Viola Spolin’s Improvisational Pedagogy By CORY CHAMBERLAIN BA, University of North Florida, 2012 MA, University of North Florida, 2014 DISSERTATION Submitted to the University of New Hampshire in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy In English May 2021 Chamberlain | ii ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ©2021 Cory Chamberlain Chamberlain | iii An Improv-able Legacy: Shining The Composition Spotlight on Viola Spolin’s Improvisational Pedagogy By Cory Chamberlain This dissertation has been examined and approved. Dissertation Director, Dr. Cristy Beemer, Associate Professor of English Dr. Christina Ortmeier-Hooper, Associate Professor of English Dr. Alecia Magnifico, Associate Professor of English Deborah Kinghorn, Professor Emeritus of Theatre and Dance Dr. James Webber, Associate Professor of English, University of Nevada-Reno 3/4/2021 Date Approval signatures are on file with the University of New Hampshire Graduate School. Chamberlain | iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................................................................................ v ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................................................ vi CHAPTER 1 ........................................................................................................................................................ 1 CHAPTER 2 ........................................................................................................................................................ 20 CHAPTER 3 ........................................................................................................................................................ 33 CHAPTER 4 ........................................................................................................................................................ 61 CHAPTER 5 ........................................................................................................................................................ 83 CHAPTER 6 ........................................................................................................................................................ 107 WORKS CITED ........................................................................................................................................................ 117 Chamberlain | v Acknowledgements I’d thank the staff at Northwestern University’s Charles Deering Memorial Library Special Collections for their expertise, kindness, and especially for their flexibility in helping me get materials I needed during a pandemic. I must also thank the University of New Hampshire Graduate School for funding my trip to Northwestern through the Dissertation Acceleration Scholarship. I would also like to thank my committee members Dr. Cris Beemer, Dr. Christina Ortmeier-Hooper, Dr. Deb Kinghorn, Dr. Alecia Magnifico and Dr. Jim Webber for helping me through the writing process. This dissertation would simply not be possible without their help. I could never have completed this work without the connections I made in New Hampshire. So, I have to thank Scott Lasley, Allison Gianotti, and Sam Donnelly for becoming the closest workplace proximity associates I have ever had. I must also thank Tyler Patterson both for recommending Spolin’s work to me and for letting me join his Improvisational classes. In addition to my academic colleagues and friends, I could not have done this without Kayla Cash, Rhosalyn Williams and Justin Glazebrook whose friendship has become more familyship. My mother and father Deborah and Richard Chamberlain deserve more than I can write here, but I must at least acknowledge their patience, love, optimism, and support. This work and all work I do is dedicated to them. I must also thank my constant writing partner Watson the Dachshund for his twenty-four-hour care and support during a very difficult process. Finally, I thank you for reading this because without you there would be no reason to write it. Chamberlain | vi ABSTRACT AN IMPROV-ABLE LEGACY: SHINING THE COMPOSITION SPOLIGHT ON VIOLA SPOLIN’S IMPROVISATIONAL PEDAGOGY by Cory Chamberlain University of New Hampshire, May 2021 This dissertation is an archival study of the works of Viola Spolin who is considered by many to be the founding mother of improvisational theater. During her life she published Improvisation for the Theater which is essential reading for anyone interested in doing improvisational theater as well as Theater Games for The Classroom where she adapted some of her techniques and games to an educational setting outside of theater. Along with these works, I was able to examine two of her unpublished works, a handbook on education and What’s Your Score? as well as various notes, correspondences and interviews housed at Northwestern University’s Charles Deering Memorial Library Special Collections. In so doing, I have composed a picture of Viola Spolin yet unseen. Using three essentials of theater games as theoretical pillars (Focus, Side Coaching, and Evaluation) as established by Spolin in Theater Games for The Classroom, I will argue that, like the work of Paulo Friere or bell hooks, Viola Spolin’s improvisational pedagogy is worthy of reclamation for the field of composition. I argue this because I believe Spolin’s work can create classrooms in which students experience the autonomy of discoveries that feel organic and relevant to their own lives through collaboration that builds on the unique individual identity of each student. Spolin’s work gives us a different model of the teacher, that of Side Coach, that uses description rather than prescription to work with students in achieving these organic moments of discovery. Finally, I argue that looking to Improvisational methods of evaluation or assessment can help us become more fair to more Chamberlain | vii students by involving students in the goal setting process. Any one of these contributions would be enough to warrant inclusion in the pantheon of composition theorists we as a discipline use to guide our teaching and scholarship. All three together prove without any doubt that Spolin’s work is worthy of reclamation for our classrooms. Chamberlain | 1 1: IMPROVISING RHETORICALLY This archival research project will be an examination of improvisational theater and its techniques in terms of how they may be utilized in rhetoric and composition pedagogy. Specifically, I will shine a spotlight on Viola Spolin, the foundational architect of improvisational theater, as an important figure in education whose theories have lasting implications on the discipline of rhetoric and compassion. To begin, I will show that rhetoric and composition and improvisational theater have always been linked and continue to be linked in contemporary composition scholarship thus legitimizing the techniques and theories of improvisational theater and reconnecting these terms to their roots in rhetorical theory to form an improvisational based pedagogy for the composition classroom. Then, I’ll trace out Spolin’s own pedagogical thoughts by carefully examining her notes, and both published and unpublished works to establish the basis for a composition pedagogy based in improvisation. I’ll utilize this improvisational composition pedagogy to directly answer the call of those seeking alternatives to traditional, assessment pedagogies and offer alternative methods of conceptualizing learning in the composition classroom that emphasize the importance of individual identities and the roles the play in classroom communities. As composition teachers so many of the things we do in the classroom are acts of improvisation. So often we come to class with a scripted lesson plan that we feel we need to get through in order to have taught our students, but just as often we adapt our lesson plans to the moment. Of course, I understand that in moments of uncertainty (and we all know these are inevitable in the classroom) a traditionally structured lesson plan helps keep us on topic to ensure students get the information we want to teach them. There is nothing wrong with wanting to set yourself up to best teach students, but why not look to improvisational theater, a genre of theater born of and dedicated to learning from uncertainty, to supplement our pedagogical repertoires? The Chamberlain | 2 good news for composition teachers is we already have some basic