"Play For Each Other"

Damian and I were the only ones that could make it to The Night Shift show tonight. It was fun, fluid, we made each other break a lot, and the audience seemed to enjoy it. That wasn't necessarily the case for the other two teams. They weren't bad but they seemed to be struggling, working too hard. There were only a couple people in the audience and the energy was a bit wonky, typical at The Playground, which can be difficult to surmount. When houses are light or the energy is weird something I've heard a lot of coaches and teachers say is "play for each other".

After years(literal years) of attempting to implement this note and watching others do the same I don't think it is terribly effective or helpful. Similar to "just have fun" it isn't actionable. There is no guidance in the phrase, no goal to meet, no direction to take.

Tonight Damian and I were having fun, were playing for each other, and it was a good show. But that feeling, that level of comfort, the pleasure we derived from creating with each other isn't something you can force or learn. It's ethereal, similarly you can't will yourself into being happy. It's something you discover. In thinking about it, in comparing the response we got to the other two sets there was something simpler and more pervasive than enjoyment that made the difference. Clarity.

In general I don't like rules and in improv I think they are only useful within a limited learning curve. However lack clarity seems to be the commonality of all bad improv. When people don't know where they are, what they are doing, who they are, or why they are there scenes flounder and become stagnate.

With clarity of circumstance and purpose playing for each other becomes a possibility, fun can be had if you know what you are doing, and if you have fun most likely the audience will too.