The theatre games tradition is a method of training actor

Actor

An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...

s that was developed in the 20th century by practitioners such as Joan Littlewood

Joan Littlewood

Joan Maud Littlewood was a British theatre director, noted for her work in developing the left-wing Theatre Workshop...

, Viola Spolin

Viola 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...

, Clive Barker

Clive Barker

Clive Barker is an English author, film director and visual artist best known for his work in both fantasy and horror fiction. Barker came to prominence in the mid-1980s with a series of short stories which established him as a leading young horror writer...

, Keith Johnstone

Keith Johnstone

Keith Johnstone is a drama instructor whose teachings and books have focused on improvisational theatre and have had a major influence on the art of improvisation.-Education:...

, Jerzy Grotowski

Jerzy Grotowski

Jerzy Grotowski was a Polish theatre director and innovator of experimental theatre, the "theatre laboratory" and "poor theatre" concepts....

 and Augusto Boal

Augusto Boal

Augusto Boal was a Brazilian theatre director, writer and politician. He was the founder of Theatre of the Oppressed, a theatrical form originally used in radical popular education movements...

. Theatre games are also commonly used as warm-up exercises for actors before a rehearsal or performance, in the development of improvisational theatre

Improvisational theatre

Improvisational theatre takes many forms. It is best known as improv or impro, which is often comedic, and sometimes poignant or dramatic. In this popular, often topical art form improvisational actors/improvisers use improvisational acting techniques to perform spontaneously...

, and as a lateral

Lateral thinking

Lateral thinking is solving problems through an indirect and creative approach, using reasoning that is not immediately obvious and involving ideas that may not be obtainable by using only traditional step-by-step logic...

 means to rehearse drama

Drama

Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...

tic material. They are also used in drama therapy

Drama therapy

Drama Therapy is the use of theatre techniques to facilitate personal growth and promote mental health. Dramatherapy is used in a wide variety of settings, including hospitals, schools, mental health centers, prisons, and businesses...

to overcome anxiety by simulating scenarios that would be fear-inducing in real life.

External links

• imprology.com Improvisation games in the Theatre Games tradition.
• theater game Theater Games for kids in Greece.