Put Viola Spolin into Chicago's American Writers Museum

The American Writers Museum, a new attraction on Chicago's Michigan Avenue, includes a section saluting Chicago writers, each honored Chicago writer being represented by a banner and a biography. Most of the worthy names are there. Del Close (though he was known primarily as a director and performer, not a writer) is there for his work in improv. Viola Spolin is not. This is a dismaying omission. DEL would say it is a dismaying omission. He once said to me (with characteristic grumpiness), "Viola got there before any of the rest of us." Spolin was the author of several books, the most famous of which, IMPROVISATION FOR THE THEATER (published by Northwestern University in the early 1960s), has gone through several dozen printings. It is not an exaggeration to say that it is one of the most important and influential books of the American theatre, laying out the theoretical foundation of the improvisational theatre movement. Second City --
which was founded by Spolin's son, Paul Sills -- is the most notable of the companies that exist because of Spolin and her work. Other Chicago theatres based on Spolin include i/O and the Annoyance Theatre, and such other celebrated companies as the Upright Citizens Brigade and the Groundlings also owe deep debts to Spolin. Add to this the THOUSANDS of other improv companies in the United States and around the world that can trace their beginnings to Spolin's work, and you're talking about a text whose impact on world theatre can only be guessed at. These are more than sufficient reasons to give Viola Spolin her due in the American Writers Museum, and we the undersigned so urge the Museum.