2016 Summer Theater Game and Story Theater Intensives in Door County, WI

Every summer Paul Sills' Wisconsin Theater Game Center offers intensives in the work of American theater legends Viola Spolin and Paul Sills. Actors, theater students, teachers, directors and other players are invited to attend one or both. Workshops are held in studios at the Sills family farm in Door County, Wisconsin, a famous vacation destination on the beautiful peninsula in Lake Michigan. Each intensive offers ten sessions in five days — 25 hours of play, with long lunch breaks in which to explore the area. Tuition is $500 or $900 for both. 

Workshop A: Theater Game Intensive with Aretha Sills
July 25 to 29
Explore the transformational theater games of Viola Spolin to enhance your training as an actor, improviser, educator, director, or to experience more play in your daily life. Viola Spolin’s theater games launched the modern American improvisational theater movement and changed the way acting is taught. Her work has influenced generations of actors and educators. The Theater Game Intensive is a concentrated course based on her groundbreaking book Improvisation for the Theater. Coached by Aretha Sills, from a lesson plan created by Paul Sills, the intensive is open to beginners and experienced players. To read quotes about Aretha's workshops, please visit here. Learn more about the intensive here. 

Workshop B: Story Theater Intensive with Carol Bleackley Sills
August 1 to 5
In the late 60s Second City founding director Paul Sills surprised the Chicago theater scene with a new art form. Players in street garb staged tales from the oral tradition set to contemporary music in dramatically-lit space. By 1970 Paul Sills' Story Theatre had won critical acclaim on both coasts. "Unequivocably great,” wrote Clive Barnes in the New York Times. Sills imparted this method in an intensive he coached with Carol Sills in 2008. Since then, Carol has continued the practice. Players will adapt stories from literature in a process that leads to a workshop performance. Viola Spolin’s theater games spark fire in a curriculum that prepares participants to coach players in their own classrooms and theaters. Learn more here. 

For more information or to register for upcoming workshops, visit www.PaulSills.com. To learn more about travel to Door County, please visit www.DoorCounty.com. Players often share lodging or car rentals and we can help you find reasonably priced accommodations. Please feel free to contact Carol Sills with questions.