Martin de Maat
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Martin de Maat (January 12, 1949 - February 15, 2001) was a teacher and artistic director at The Second City in Chicago. He also taught at Columbia College. He studied under Viola Spolin. De Maat and Del Close were the two main figures of the Chicago improvisational comedy scene in the late 80's and throughout the 1990s.
De Maat began working at Second City as a teenager washing dishes in the kitchen and began teaching classes there when he was 18 years old. He studied theater at the University of Iowa and would much later receive a PhD from National University in Kanpur in communication arts. In 1974 he moved to New York City, where he became a very successful director and art director in both theater and film. In 1984 he returned to Chicago and began to teach improv at the Players Workshop, an improvisational theater school run by his aunt, Josephine Forsberg. About that time, friend and colleague Sheldon Patinkin asked Martin to join the staff of the recently created Second City Training Center. In 1985 he became it's artistic director and led the development of the acting, writing and improvisation programs for the next 15 years. We became well known as a transformative and empowering teacher, who greeted his students with a hug and referred to Second City as their home.
Martin de Maat died on February 15, 2001 of complications from pneumonia. An always very private person in the the public eye, he never revealed his age. The Chicago Sun-Times published it in his obituary at "around 52." It also came as a shock to many that knew him that he had been living with AIDS for several years. After his death, he received many honors and memorials, especially in Chicago, New York and Los Angeles where many of his students and colleagues teach, direct and perform. At the Second City Training Center in Chicago an ongoing performance series was named in his honor, The de Maat Showcase. A plaque in his honor hangs on the wall at the entrance to the training center, bearing one of this his most famous quotes, "You are pure potential."
Some of Martin de Maat's students over the years include: Mick Napier, Chris Farley, Tim Meadows, Rachel Dratch, Sean Hayes, Tina Fey, and a young David Mamet.
[edit] Inspirational quotes
de Maat was famously known for his positive affirmations he would use in his classes. Some of them include:
- "You are pure potential."
- "You have the right to follow your dreams. I'm giving you permission to follow your dreams."
- "Let’s try and create scenes that are about something deeper than this ashtray."
- "The Hokey Pokey. Think about it. At the end of the song, what do we learn? What is it all about? You put your whole self in!"
- "You know what intimacy is? It's into-me-you-see."
- "No one will ever follow you down the street if you're carrying a banner that says, 'Onward toward mediocrity.'"
- "You do not have the right to use this art form to feel inferior."
- "I do not give you permission to fail-- I'm giving you permission to follow your dreams."
[edit] External links
