Paul Sills
Encyclopedia
Paul Sills was a director and improvisation
teacher, and the original director of Chicago
's The Second City
.
, who authored the first book on improvisation techniques, Improvisation for the Theater. Spolin in turn was the student of play therapy theorist Neva Boyd
.
In 1948, Sills enrolled in the University of Chicago
, where he established himself as a director, co-founding Playwright's Theater Club. There, with fellow actors Edward Asner, Byrne Piven
and Zohra Lampert
, they blended Spolin technique with established theater training.
In 1955, Sills and David Shepherd founded Compass Players, the first improvisational theater in the US, where he directed Shelley Berman
, Mike Nichols
and Elaine May
. In 1959, Sills, along with partners Howard Alk
and Bernie Sahlins, opened a theatre called The Second City
where revues developed improvisationally were presented under Sills's direction. With early cast members Alan Arkin
, Barbara Harris
, Severn Darden
, Mina Kolb and Paul Sand
, success led to New York (a brief run on Broadway and a long one off-Broadway), London and world recognition.
Sills left Second City in 1965 to form the Game Theater, where he coached his mother's improvisational techniques in performance and audience participation was encouraged. His mother and other community friends were partners. The Parents School was co-founded there, with wife Carol and others, with a children's curriculum based on group art forms and play. It operated for almost two decades. At the Game Theater, he also discovered a new form, which he called Story Theater
, which debuted at 1848 N. Wells Street during the summer of 1968. Story Theatre went on to play at Yale University
, in Los Angeles
and on Broadway, remaining the form Sills explored for the rest of his life. His book, Paul Sills' Story Theater: Four Shows, was published by Applause Books.
Sills launched a further excursion into coaching Spolin theater games for performance, called Sills & Co. in the 1980s when he gathered many early Second City players to appear in Los Angeles
and New York
.
He started the New Actors Workshop
, an acting school in midtown Manhattan
with Mike Nichols
and George Morrison
where he led guest workshops, lectures, and directed once a year. He also founded the Wisconsin Theater Game Center with his wife Carol at his rural home in Baileys Harbor. For many years he and Carol produced annual original productions in Door County
, working with a local troupe. Summer classes in Spolin theater games and Story Theatre continue to be taught there by his widow, two of their daughters (Aretha and Neva Sills), along with Bob Moyer and Max Schafer.
Sills's first two wives were Dorothea Horton and Barbara Harris
.
, of complications from pneumonia
. He is survived by his third wife Carol, a son, four daughters, four grandchildren, and two great grandchildren.
Improvisation
Improvisation is the practice of acting, singing, talking and reacting, of making and creating, in the moment and in response to the stimulus of one's immediate environment and inner feelings. This can result in the invention of new thought patterns, new practices, new structures or symbols, and/or...
teacher, and the original director of Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
's The Second City
The Second City
The Second City is a improvisational comedy enterprise which originated in Chicago's Old Town neighborhood.The Second City Theatre opened on December 16, 1959 and has since expanded its presence to several other cities, including Toronto and Los Angeles...
.
Biography
Born as Paul Silverberg, his mother was teacher and writer Viola SpolinViola Spolin
Viola Spolin was an important innovator of the American theater in the 20th century. She created directorial techniques to help actors to be focused in the present moment and to find choices improvisationally, as if in real life...
, who authored the first book on improvisation techniques, Improvisation for the Theater. Spolin in turn was the student of play therapy theorist Neva Boyd
Neva Boyd
Neva Leona Boyd founded the Recreational Training School at the Hull House in Chicago. The school taught a one-year educational program in group games, gymnastics, dancing, dramatic arts, play theory, and social problems...
.
In 1948, Sills enrolled in the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
, where he established himself as a director, co-founding Playwright's Theater Club. There, with fellow actors Edward Asner, Byrne Piven
Byrne Piven
Byrne Piven was an influential American stage actor, director, and co-founder of the Playwrights Theatre Club, a forerunner of The Second City.-Life and career:...
and Zohra Lampert
Zohra Lampert
Zohra Lampert is an American actress, who has had roles on film, television and stage. She may be best remembered for her role as the title character in the 1971 cult horror film Let's Scare Jessica to Death, as well as starring alongside Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty in the 1961 romance film...
, they blended Spolin technique with established theater training.
In 1955, Sills and David Shepherd founded Compass Players, the first improvisational theater in the US, where he directed Shelley Berman
Shelley Berman
Sheldon "Shelley" Berman is an American comedian, actor, writer, teacher, lecturer, and poet.- Early life :Berman was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Irene and Nathan Berman.- Career :...
, Mike Nichols
Mike Nichols
Mike Nichols is a German-born American television, stage and film director, writer, producer and comedian. He began his career in the 1950s as one half of the comedy duo Nichols and May, along with Elaine May. In 1968 he won the Academy Award for Best Director for the film The Graduate...
and Elaine May
Elaine May
Elaine May is an American film director, screenwriter and actress. She achieved her greatest fame in the 1950s from her improvisational comedy routines in partnership with Mike Nichols...
. In 1959, Sills, along with partners Howard Alk
Howard Alk
-Career:Alk enrolled in the University of Chicago at the age of 14. He was a member of the Compass Players cabaret troupe and one of the founders of The Second City. Alk had previously worked with Sills at the Gate of Horn. According to Sahlins, Alk coined the group's name...
and Bernie Sahlins, opened a theatre called The Second City
The Second City
The Second City is a improvisational comedy enterprise which originated in Chicago's Old Town neighborhood.The Second City Theatre opened on December 16, 1959 and has since expanded its presence to several other cities, including Toronto and Los Angeles...
where revues developed improvisationally were presented under Sills's direction. With early cast members Alan Arkin
Alan Arkin
Alan Wolf Arkin is an American actor, director, musician and singer. He is known for starring in such films as Wait Until Dark, The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Catch-22, The In-Laws, Edward Scissorhands, Glengarry Glen Ross, Marley & Me, and...
, Barbara Harris
Barbara Harris (actress)
Barbara Harris is an American actress who was a Broadway stage star and later became a film actress. She appeared in such films as A Thousand Clowns, Plaza Suite, Nashville, Family Plot, Freaky Friday, Peggy Sue Got Married, and Grosse Pointe Blank...
, Severn Darden
Severn Darden
Severn Teakle Darden, Jr. was a comedian and actor, and an original member of The Second City Chicago-based comedy troupe as well as its predecessor, the Compass Players...
, Mina Kolb and Paul Sand
Paul Sand
Paul Sand is an American comedic actor.-Background:Sand was born Paul Sanchez in Santa Monica, California, the son of Sonia Borodiansky, a writer, and Ernest Rivera Sanchez, an aerospace tool designer. His father was Mexican and his mother of Russian descent.-Career:At the age of 11, he started at...
, success led to New York (a brief run on Broadway and a long one off-Broadway), London and world recognition.
Sills left Second City in 1965 to form the Game Theater, where he coached his mother's improvisational techniques in performance and audience participation was encouraged. His mother and other community friends were partners. The Parents School was co-founded there, with wife Carol and others, with a children's curriculum based on group art forms and play. It operated for almost two decades. At the Game Theater, he also discovered a new form, which he called Story Theater
Paul Sill's Story Theatre
Paul Sills' Story Theatre is a play with music, adapted from fairy tales collected by the Brothers Grimm.It opened on Broadway at the Ambassador Theatre on October 26, 1970 and closed on July 3, 1971, after 243 performances and 14 previews. Directed by Paul Sills, it featured Paul Sand, Valerie...
, which debuted at 1848 N. Wells Street during the summer of 1968. Story Theatre went on to play at Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
, in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
and on Broadway, remaining the form Sills explored for the rest of his life. His book, Paul Sills' Story Theater: Four Shows, was published by Applause Books.
Sills launched a further excursion into coaching Spolin theater games for performance, called Sills & Co. in the 1980s when he gathered many early Second City players to appear in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
and New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
.
He started the New Actors Workshop
The New Actors Workshop
The New Actors Workshop was a two-year acting conservatory in New York City founded by Master Teachers Mike Nichols, George Morrison and Paul Sills in 1988. The school offered a unique, dual-track curriculum combining Stanislavski-based technique with Viola Spolin Theater Games...
, an acting school in midtown Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
with Mike Nichols
Mike Nichols
Mike Nichols is a German-born American television, stage and film director, writer, producer and comedian. He began his career in the 1950s as one half of the comedy duo Nichols and May, along with Elaine May. In 1968 he won the Academy Award for Best Director for the film The Graduate...
and George Morrison
George Morrison (director, acting teacher)
George Morrison is one of the leading teachers of acting in the United States.-Biography:Born in Evanston, Illinois, he attended the public schools there and started acting in the pioneering children’s theater headed by Winifred Ward. By age 13 he was playing Tom Sawyer in an elaborate production...
where he led guest workshops, lectures, and directed once a year. He also founded the Wisconsin Theater Game Center with his wife Carol at his rural home in Baileys Harbor. For many years he and Carol produced annual original productions in Door County
Door County, Wisconsin
Door County is a county in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. As of 2000, the population was 27,961. Its county seat is Sturgeon Bay. Door County is a popular vacation and tourist destination, especially for residents of Wisconsin and Illinois....
, working with a local troupe. Summer classes in Spolin theater games and Story Theatre continue to be taught there by his widow, two of their daughters (Aretha and Neva Sills), along with Bob Moyer and Max Schafer.
Sills's first two wives were Dorothea Horton and Barbara Harris
Barbara Harris (actress)
Barbara Harris is an American actress who was a Broadway stage star and later became a film actress. She appeared in such films as A Thousand Clowns, Plaza Suite, Nashville, Family Plot, Freaky Friday, Peggy Sue Got Married, and Grosse Pointe Blank...
.
Death
Paul Sills died on June 1, 2008 at the age of 80, at his home in Baileys Harbor, WisconsinBaileys Harbor, Wisconsin
Baileys Harbor is a town in Door County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 1,003 at the 2000 census. The unincorporated community of Peninsula Center is located in the town...
, of complications from pneumonia
Pneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...
. He is survived by his third wife Carol, a son, four daughters, four grandchildren, and two great grandchildren.
Quotes
- “There is no technique. You just need a little respect for the invisible."
- "The audience is smarter than you."
- “There’s no laugh like the explosion of laughter after improvisation.”
- "Feel your feet."
- "Get out of your f***ing head!"
- "If this was baseball, you'd be kicked off the goddamn team."
- "Theatre is dead. You guys just don't know it yet."
- "Listen, I've been doing this for fifty years; I know funny. And trust me, you're not funny people."