Creative Strategies and Growing Pains
Today was a day that revealed such an amazing and common struggle I seem to experience often in my life. An experience of direction, clarity and purpose. We started off our day with a bang. The experience we ended the evening with last night was one of great triumph. We found or story and played through the concept with enthusiasm and vigour. But, when we went to quantify, specify, and clean, we were lost. We found the common vision we thought we all shared was not a common vision at all, but a big jumble of miscommunication.
It’s amazing this whole working on a team dynamic. The idea of making something with others takes communication, conversation, sharing and listening. These are all ideas we think we naturally have, like we are born with all these capabilities. But alas, not so. And not only are we not natural listeners or communicators, but we each learn in a different way, so even when we think we are talking, there is no way we are actually doing so. And boy did we ever figure this out today. So the evening culminated with 3 days til the show goes up and no show. So what did we do when we felt stuck?
What everyone always does when they feel stuck. We made dinner. We made dinner, ate, enjoyed each other, and came back to the creative table with fresh ideas and inspiration.
Our phenomenally fearless leader, Jenny, created an exercise, one intended to get us all on the same page– solidified as it were. We each began by writing about the intention of the piece for two minutes. Then thirty words. Then five. Then one. We then went in a circle, shared each of our ideas, then picked one.
From this one, we had a diving board. From this one we found direction. So we go to bed with some glimmer of hope that the show will make some semblance of sense and we will be able to do what we came here to do: tell a story that moves people, inspires people to think and feel– to seek to know more and push harder.
Ah the growing pains of creating. This shit ain’t easy, but it sure is fun. I say good night to the church bells of Old Prague.
Till tomorrow!
xo
a
Tags: creation, precision, struggle
the end of a day of creation
I feel like in this process of creating a play with nine other amazing people, I am creating a side of me that has atrophied… a side of myself I was so familiar with when I was younger that I took it for granted. I though this muscle of introspection and creativity came from my mother’s womb. In other words, I assumed I was “special” and just born with this wild imagination the allowed me great freedom in acting and creating. The thing I forgot to mention to me was that I was spending at least 6 hours a week in acting class. Spending hours upon hours improvising and writing and building characters and ideas. But this was fun! It couldn’t have been work. This is what I told myself to continue the lie of “special-ness”. I think believing this lie has been one of the greatest disservices of my life; Something so sad. I have spent the last 8 years on Smallville assuming I was just “gifted.” I completely suppressed myself as well as my teachers for all the time I spent refining and honing this craft I had built for myself.
As a result I felt less and less facile with my ability. Every season of Smallville I felt more and more a victim of my circumstance. I felt more and more fearful of opportunity and even ability to play other things, let alone my current job well. The depth of imagination and creativity I once had was fleeting fast and I was blaming it on everything other than my lack of effort in building it in me.
Today was the day I re-discovered the importance of practice and effort in the art I once felt so magnificent upholding, but have felt so disconnected from. I am working with a team of unbelievable creators who have no ego, no suppression or competition, only joy in the creative process.
We have spent the last 24 hours brainstorming ideas. Any idea you could think to come up with, we threw out there. Just looking and thinking and thinking and looking, exploring every avenue, until our minds hurt and we didn’t know what else to say to each other. So we went for sushi (yes, there is a “Mr. Sushi” up the street from our apartment in old town Prague, weird?) and cleaned our minds with a nice dose of wasabi. And we got into putting the ideas on their feet.
What came out of this exercise was a 25 minute improv based in movement, music, text, and song that was so moving and rich, I was humbled and inspired! I was reminded of why I love what I do; why I want to do these small project that take so much time and cost so much money, but fuel my soul and help me to see what I am missing in my world. I am so passionate about what I do again. It feels like I have found it after having been lost for a long time. I have found me again.
Throw out the ego and pride of already knowing something and build a practice of learning something new each day, in each second, look for that which you don’t know, where your knowledge fails, and go for that. Because joy lies in growth and learning, not complacency and pride. There is no depth or support to a superficial image, so in the end you live with fear that someone will tip you over, and the whole world will come tumbling down around you. Essentially, you are living on a centimeter of security!
Ok, it’s 3:23 in the morning here in gorgeous Prague and I have an 11 am rehearsal! I will try and get some video up tomorrow, sorry about the delay on this. Rehearsals are going a bit longer than expected and I kind of think getting the show on it’s feet is important, considering that is the reason we are here!
Jenny just figured out how to stream a live cast of the show though! So I will keep you all updated with that info so you can see us perform in real time!
Fun, no?
ok ciao
xo
a
Tags: Acting, building, festival, inspiration, Joy, love, me, plays, practice, prague
