creative confidence in troubled kids as well as for child actors and kids who just wanted to have fun improvising. Spolin was associated for many years with Jane Addams Hull House as well as other locations where she and her assistant teachers taught improv workshops to children. Spolin also directed numerous shows for children, including a production at Playwights in the mid-1950s. Soon after the Second City opened its doors in 1959, Spolin started putting up shows for children on the weekends. During Spolin children's shows the kids in the audience were invited up onto the stage to play Theatre Games with the cast. In the mid-1960s, Spolin handed the children's show (along with her improv classes) over to her protégé and assistant, Josephine Forsberg, who renamed it The Children's Theatre of the Second City and continued to produce and direct it until 1997, using Viola Spolin's audience participation improv games after every performance. Bibliography Improvisation for the Theater (1963, 1st ed.; 1983, 2nd ed.; 1999, 3rd ed.) (Text of Improvisation for the Theater) Theater Games for the Classroom: A Teacher's Handbook (1986) ( Text of Theater Games for the Classroom) Theater Games for the Lone Actor (2001) Theater Games for Rehearsal: A Director's Handbook, Viola Spolin (author), Carol Bleakley Sills (editor), Rob Reiner (foreword) (1985, 1st ed.; 2010, 2nd ed.) (Text of Theater Games for Rehearsal) Theater Game File (1985) Improvisationstechniken für Pädagogik, Therapie und Theater (2002) References External links The Spolin Center The Second City - With significant Flash Animations Audio of NPR Spolin program - with a link to the GiveandTake yahoo group Viola Spolin theatre ephemera, 1940s-1994 (bulk 1980s-1994), held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts 1906 births 1994 deaths People from Chicago Actresses from Chicago American acting theorists American stage actresses American acting coaches Drama teachers Brandeis University faculty Works Progress Administration workers