Donald Keith Johnstone (21 February 1933 – 11 March 2023) was a British-Canadian educator and theatre director. A pioneer of improvisational theatre, he was best known for inventing the ''Impro System'', part of which are the Theatresports. He was also an educator, playwright, actor and theatre director.

Life

Donald Keith Johnstone was born in 1933 in Brixham, Devon, England. He grew up hating school, finding that it blunted his imagination and made him feel self-conscious and shy. After attending St Luke's College Exeter, he taught at a working-class school in Battersea, London in the early 1950s, before being commissioned to write a play by the Royal Court Theatre in 1956. He subsequently became a play-reader, director and drama teacher there, where he chose to reverse all that his teachers had told him in an attempt to create more spontaneous actors. From 1973 to 1975 he was a professor at Queens University in Kingston Ontario Canada. His play Shot By An Elk was first produced at Queens University. In 1975, Johnstone moved to

Calgary Calgary () is a major city in the Canadian province of Alberta. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806 making it the third-largest city and fifth-largest metropolitan area in C ...

Alberta Alberta is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Canada. It is a part of Western Canada and is one of the three Canadian Prairies, prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to its west, Saskatchewan to its east, t ...

to teach at the

University of Calgary {{Infobox university , name = University of Calgary , image = University of Calgary coat of arms without motto scroll.svg , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms , former ...

, where he remained until retiring in 1995. Johnstone is featured in the book '' Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking'' by

Malcolm Gladwell Malcolm Timothy Gladwell (born 3 September 1963) is a Canadian journalist, author, and public speaker. He has been a staff writer for ''The New Yorker'' since 1996. He has published eight books. He is also the host of the podcast ''Revisionist ...

. Johnstone was married to Ingrid von Darl until their divorce in 1981. They had one son, Benjamin Johnstone who had one son, Cort Dawnne, and Johnstone had a second son from another relationship. He died at Rockyview General Hospital in Calgary on 11 March 2023, at the age of 90.

Work

Johnstone developed his training system at the Loose Moose Theatre, which he co-founded in 1977. He retired as artistic director in 1998, but remained involved with the company and continued to work as an educator until 2018, amid a decline in his health. Johnstone's work with performers comprised a vast collection of training games, exercises and lazzi. He wrote two books about his system; 1979's ''Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre'', and 1998's ''Impro For Storytellers''. Johnstone's teaching was described as a reversal of the lessons he received as a child in postwar Britain. Writing in ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' in 2009, Mark Ravenhill said about him, "Whereas his teachers told him to think more, he'll tell his students to think less. He was advised to plan a story before it was written. Now he says: listen to an audience and let the tale tell itself". Johnstone was known for slogans that encapsulated his philosophy of improvisation, and included: * "You can't learn anything without failing" * "Please don't do your best. Trying to do your best is trying to be better than you are" * "Go onto stage to make relationships. At least you won't be alone." * "It's not the offer, but what you do with it." * "Allow yourself to see the audience as interesting and attractive."Described in this TEDx by one of his students: "What If Everybody Was Interesting And Attractive?" https://flintoff.org/everybody-is

Selected publications

* 1979 '' Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre'', * 1998 ''Impro For Storytellers'',

Notes

References

External links

Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia entry

"Unscripted"
, Chris Wiebe, '' Alberta Views'' magazine, September 2005. *
Keith Johnstone's company website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Johnstone, Keith 1933 births 2023 deaths 20th-century Canadian male writers 20th-century Canadian non-fiction writers 20th-century English male writers 20th-century English non-fiction writers Academic staff of the University of Calgary Acting theorists Alumni of the University of Exeter Anglo-Scots British theatre directors British theatre managers and producers Canadian male non-fiction writers Canadian theatre directors Canadian theatre managers and producers English emigrants to Canada English male non-fiction writers Improvisational theatre in Canada People from Brixham