The Mother of All Improvisation

Neva Boyd

Improvisation, the concept of creating scenes or entire plays based on an outline, had it's origins in Commedia del'Arte. Actors assumes one of six stock characters, becoming so studied in the character's trait that they were able to enact plays while improvising the plot. Since that time Chicago has become most closely associated with this form of theatre. Though Second City has become an icon in Improvisation, without the groundbreaking work of Neva Boyd that institution would likely not exist.

Neva Boyd, a leader in the children's theatre movement, founded the Recreational Training School at Chicago' Hull-House. She conducted workshops that emphasized play as a learning discipline.

Viola Spolin

Boyd taught children and adults games that stimulated creative personal expression through self-discovery and personal experience. Of her games she had this to say: " Playing a game is psychologically different in a degree but not in kind from dramatic acting. The ability to create a situation imaginatively and to play a role in it is a tremendous experience, a sort of vacation from one's everyday self and routine of everyday living."

One of her students was Viola Spolin. She took Boyd's games and expanded on the exercises. She  imagined a new kind of theatre made up of games. The result was her book "Improvisation for the Theatre". She was fond of saying "Anyone who wishes to can play in the theatre. . ." Spolin's game theatre became the basis for modern day improvisation. Spolin taught her son Paul and his friends who went on to found The Compass Players and a few years later The Second City.

Boyd has never been properly credited for her contribution to improvisation. It is the purpose of this article to give her that long overdue honor. Mrs. Boyd  probably never imagined that her games and exercises would launch a revolution in the American theatre,