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Improvisation for the Mind: Theatrical Improvisation, Consciousness, and Cognition A dissertation submitted by Clayton Deaver Drinko In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Drama Tufts University May 2012 © 2012, Clayton D. Drinko Advisor: Downing Cless ii Abstract Improvisation teachers Viola Spolin, Del Close, and Keith Johnstone knew that with structure and guidelines, the human mind can be trained to be effortlessly spontaneous and intuitive. Cognitive studies is just now catching up with what improvisers have known for over fifty years. Through archival research, workshops, and interviews, I ask what these improvisation teachers already knew about improvisation’s effects on consciousness and cognition. I then hold their theories up against current findings in cognitive neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy. The hypothesis that comes out of my methodology is that improvisation orders consciousness. By demanding an outward focus on other improvisers and the game being played, improvisation diminishes one’s internal focus. This reduces self-consciousness, fear, and anxiety. I also look at more extreme examples of this change in focus where improvisers reach states of flow and experience changes in perception, time, and memory. Examining cognitive studies’ relevance to improvisation has implication for scripted productions, therapy, and our everyday lives. The guidelines of improvisation and how those guidelines alter consciousness and cognition can serve as a model in ordering consciousness, interacting with people, and living optimally. iii Acknowledgements I have to thank my advisor, Downing Cless. Thank you for stepping up to the plate, giving me great revision ideas, and challenging me to make this dissertation stronger, better, and faster. My committee members also deserve thanks for all their suggestions for improvements. Thank you to Barbara Grossman, Natalya Baldyga, and John Lutterbie. I owe them for making this dissertation better, but any rough spots are nobody’s fault but my own. I also could not have completed my original research without the help of Benn Joseph, Scott Krafft, and the rest of the amazing staff at the Northwestern University Special Collections. I was lucky enough to take amazing improvisation workshops at iO and with Keith Johnstone, where I met fantastic, funny, kind people who helped me with this project, taught me, and granted me interviews. Thank you to Joe Bill, Dina Facklis, Steve Waltien, Marla Caceres, Jessica Rogers, Christy Bonstell, Christine Dunford, and a huge thank you to Charna Halpern and Keith Johnstone. I also want to thank my iO summer intensive classmates and my classmates at the Keith Johnstone workshop in Berlin. I made lasting friendships with people who helped me keep this research grounded in the real world. The people I met at conferences along this journey helped give me even more to think about and also encouraged me that this was a worthwhile pursuit. Thanks to the people I met at the Consciousness, Theatre, Literature, and the Arts conference, Blackfriars, ASTR, and ATHE including Rhonda Blair and Daniel Meyer Dinkgräfe. Thank you for the generous funding provided by the Trustees of Tufts. Without your generosity and faith in my project, I would not have been able to complete this so promptly or travel as extensively. Mary Reynolds and Katie Hammond, thank you for giving me feedback and sources that I used for this dissertation. Thank you also to friends and family who kept me sane, grounded, and happy. You know who you are, Trevor family, Tufts family, Wooster family, and Drinko family. This dissertation is dedicated to Elizabeth Drinko, John Drinko, and J. Deaver Drinko. You started me on this path, and I am proud to finish it. You are no longer physically here with me but will always remain in my consciousness. iv Table of Contents Introduction………………………………………………………………….......1 Chapter 1: Viola Spolin: Games as a Means towards Flow, Empathy, and Finding One’s Truer Self……………………………………………….....30 Chapter 2: Del Close: Improvisational Time and the Multiple Draft Modeled Mind…………………………………….......62 Chapter 3: Keith Johnstone: Spontaneity, Storytelling, Status and Masks, Trance, Altered States………………….......………………….....106 Chapter 4: The Improvising Mind: On Stage and in the Lab………………......148 Conclusion..………………………………………………………………….....176 Appendix……………………………………………………………………….184 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………185 1 Introduction Viola Spolin begins her book Improvisation for the Theater (1963) by saying that everyone can act and everyone can improvise.1 Everyone does. People behave spontaneously all the time. Theatrical improvisation is a microcosm to better understand how guidelines and structure can lead to intuitive and inspired behavior, so a look at the theatrically improvising mind and brain has implications for all people. What is going on in the creative and spontaneous improvising mind? How are time, memory, and notions of the self affected while improvising? And how can we access this mode of spontaneity for drama, other artistic pursuits, other fields, and even our everyday moment-to-moment happiness? In college, I regularly rehearsed and performed with a very tight-knit improv comedy troupe. During a few performances, I seemed to get so “into the show” that I did not remember performing. I had, and still have, no recollection of being onstage. The shows were all videotaped, and when we watched the tapes I was amazed at how good I was at improvising. Yet I still had no memory of being that guy on the video. The unique rules, structure, and skill-set required for improv affected my mind/brain differently than scripted performances. My personal experience led me to this dissertation and my broader hypothesis on improvisational acting, which is that the difference between “as if for the first time” and “for the first time” changes the way an actor thinks, reacts, 1 Viola Spolin, Improvisation for the Theater: A Handbook of Teaching and Directing Techniques (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1963), 3. 2 and performs. It changes how the performer’s mind functions. This, as a result, changes the very quality of a performance. I am not about to argue that all performances should be improvised; most would fail painfully, the dreaded downside of the art form. I do, however, think that a look into how various improvised acting techniques can affect consciousness and cognition can give valuable insights into creating lively, engaging theatre while also expanding our understanding of the mind more generally. The question is, “How does theatrical improvisation affect consciousness and cognition?” To answer that question I look at the teaching and writing of Viola Spolin, Del Close, and Keith Johnstone and compare their theories to those of recent cognitive studies. What interests me in this topic is not just a look at improv’s history but that history viewed with the cognitive processes and possibilities always at the forefront of the discussion. My project is to uncover what Viola Spolin, Del Close, and Keith Johnstone intended, what actually ends up happening to their practitioners while improvising, and finally, what current cognitive neuroscience can add to the explication of the various improv schools. My thesis is that the brain of an improviser works differently than the brain of someone reciting a script. The key to unlocking this improvising brain is focus. Most improv instruction centers around skill-sets and rules that must be ingrained in the mind of the performer. Once second nature, this new way of focusing allows parts of the brain related to self-censorship and editing to quiet and regions of the brain related to intuition and creativity to take over. The history of improvisation has been written a few times, sometimes quite 3 thoroughly, but consciousness and what goes on inside the brain during improvisation is always alluded to without ever being explained. Frost and Yarrow’s Improvisation in Drama (2007) casts a wide net by defining improvisation in broad terms. Their exploration includes System-based rehearsals, psychodrama, and even the work of Brecht. One conclusion of these histories is that improvisation is an integral part of even scripted drama. David Charles’s dissertation The Novelty of Improvisation: Towards a Genre of Embodied Spontaneity (2003) also interprets improvisation in broad terms by including the work of Grotowski, Boal, and psychodrama. These two histories are far-reaching and extremely thorough; they incorporate various cultures and modes of improvisation. In Whose Improv Is It Anyway?: Beyond Second City (2001), professor in theatre and dance Amy Seham uses a narrower scope to analyze Chicago-based improv comedy that comes out of the work of Neva Boyd and Viola Spolin as well as Keith Johnstone’s theatresports-based improv. Her focus, though, is on the social implications of Chicago improv’s “boys’ club.”2 All three histories are important and drop hints and clues about improvisation’s effects on consciousness and cognition that I intend to pick up and explore more deeply with my project. References to consciousness, transformations, altered states of mind/consciousness, presence, and deep listening abound in writing about improvisational theatre. For example, David Charles’s dissertation introduces huge questions about consciousness and 2 Chicago improv is dominated by heterosexual, white men, and Seham’s project is to explore the lack of diversity in the form.

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