From Neva Boyd to Viola Spolin: How Social Group Work in 1920s’ Settlement Houses Defined Collective Creation in 1960s’ Theatres

Abstract

This chapter traces the influence of Neva Boyd (developer of Play Theory and Game Theory in group social work) on Boyd’s student at Chicago’s Hull-House in the 1920s, Viola Spolin (the force behind the popularization of improvisation in US theatre). It further considers how Spolin’s reworking of Boyd’s ideas shaped the practices of 1960s’ companies, such as the Open Theater and the Living Theatre, which used improvisation as their primary means of collective creation. Focusing on Spolin’s translation of Boyd’s concepts of “play” and “games” reveals that the roots of contemporary devised theatre can be found in Boyd’s group social work with immigrant communities. In particular, this lineage challenges the tendency among theatre historians to equate collective creation with “leaderlessness.”