] The After-Dinner Joke is a television play in the form of a theatrical movement arising in the early to mid-20th century through the creation of a new what?
The After-Dinner Joke The After-Dinner Joke is a television play in the epic form written by the English playwright Caryl Churchill for the BBC1 "Play for Today" series which was broadcast on 14 February 1978.
Viola Spolin Viola Spolin (November 7, 1906 — November 22, 1994) was a theatre academic, educator and acting coach. She is considered an important innovator in 20th century American theater for creating directorial techniques to help actors to be focused in the present moment and to find choices improvisationally, as if in real life. These acting exercises she later called Theater Games and formed the first body of work that enabled other directors and actors to create improvisational theater. Her book "Improvisation for the Theater", which published these techniques, includes her philosophy and her teaching and coaching methods, and is considered the "bible of improvisational theater". Spolin's contributions were seminal to the improvisational theater movement in the U.S. She is considered to be the mother of Improvisational theater. Her work has influenced American theater, television and film by providing new tools and techniques that are now used by actors, directors and writers.