Biography
Aretha Sills is a writer and teacher of improvisational theater and creative writing. The granddaughter of Viola Spolin, she studied theater games for many years with her father, director Paul Sills (creator/director of The Second City and Story Theater), and has conducted workshops for Paul Sills’ Wisconsin Theater Game Center, Bard College, Stella Adler Studio of Acting, Sarah Lawrence College, Northwestern University, and The Ed Asner Family Center. She has worked with Tony- and Emmy-Award winning actors and has trained faculty from Northwestern, DePaul, Columbia College, The Second City, The Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science, LAUSD, and many other institutions and schools. She created and directs an improvised show that tours Los Angeles public elementary schools. Aretha also gives talks on how improvisational theater in the United States emerged out of Progressive-era social reforms in Chicago via the work of Neva Boyd, Viola Spolin, and Paul Sills. She’s given keynote addresses at the California Educational Theatre Conference and the Applied Improvisation Network World Conference. You can learn more about Viola Spolin and find Aretha’s workshops at www.violaspolin.org
www.ViolaSpolin.org
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