Keith Johnstone: A Critical Biography

by Theresa Dudeck

Keith Johnstone entered the Royal Court Theatre as a new playwright in 1956: a decade later he emerged as a groundbreaking director and teacher of improvisation. His decisive book Impro (1979), described Johnstone's unique system of weaving together theories and techniques to encourage spontaneous, collaborative creation using the intuition and imagination of the actors. Johnstone has since become world-renowned, inspiring theatre greats and beginners alike; and his work continues to influence practice within and beyond the traditional theatre.

Theresa Robbins Dudeck is the first author to rigorously examine Johnstone’s life and career using a combination of archival documents – many from Johnstone’s personal collection – participant observation, and interviews with Johnstone, his colleagues and former students.

Keith A Critical Biography is a fascinating journey through the physical spaces that have served as Johnstone’s transformative classrooms, and into the conceptual spaces which inform his radical pedagogy and approach to artistic work.

228 pages, Paperback

First published September 26, 2013

Reviews

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this book ok--nothing earth-shattering or amazing. Valuable to the hard-core improv historian, but you probably could skip it otherwise.

It goes over some of the same chronology as "Impro" at the beginning, but certainly adds a lot more detail to Keith's development of the Impro Method.

I think you get a nice sense of Keith in the book. I spent 10 days with him in a workshop in Calgary in July 2013 (Keith actually received his advance copy during our class) and I found the last section of the book very accurate in the portrayal of such workshops and Keith's demeanor.