Education
From that point on most of the young performers that wanted to go onto the Second City stage studied with Forsberg for at least a year.
From that point on most of the young performers that wanted to go onto the Second City stage studied with Forsberg for at least a year.
She became an expert in improvisational techniques for the theater, and by the mid 1960s she had taken over most of Spolin"s and Sills"s classes, as well as Spolin"s children"s theater company. These included Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, Betty Thomas, Shelley Long, George Wendt, David Mamet, and Robert Townsend. In terms of accepting students who were not necessarily Second City actors learning the art of improvisation, but also including students from all walks of life and professional disciplines Players Workshop can arguably be called the first real school of Improvisation, with a class structure, syllabus, and graduation requirement, pre-dating loosely organized workshops created in the mid-1970s by Dudley Riggs (Minneapolis, Minnesota United States of America) and Keith Johnstone (Calgary, Bachelor of Arts, Canada).
lieutenant soon grew to the largest school of improv in the country, training people for the Second City stage through a six term (12 month) course.
One of Forsberg"s students, Charna Halpern, joined forces with David Shepard and helped to bring the Improv Olympiad to become one of Chicago"s foremost arena"s for new improvisers. In the late 1980s Charna Halpern and Delegate Close transformed the Improv Olympiad into the IO, using Delegate"s new improv format called The Harold, otherwise known as long form.
In 2003 Players Workshop closed its doors. At 86 years old she did just that.
lieutenant was the first time that she had taught anyone in years.
She returned to teach the New York Giants again in 2008. Forsberg died on October 3, 2011.