Receive It

I am in the process of processing, if ya know what I mean.

This past weekend I got to be apart of an incredible opportunity.  As a theatre department and then specifically as the cast of The Antics of Romantics, we worked with the playwright, Jeff Wirth.  It would be as if Shakespeare came to help you out with your production of Romeo and Juliet.  I know! It was amazing! Click on his name above and check out his site-He is the most humble, encouraging and fun person to work with that I felt a loss the moment rehearsal ended and he had to fly back to New York.

"I believe in the power of play.

I believe in the empowerment of others.

Interactive performance fulfills both." -Jeff Wirth

One of Jeff's of the main points that Jeff wanted to make sure we understood was that every person wants to play.  It may not be in the same way that you play, so learn how they do and then play along!  


It's incredible how much little we play in our society and how little people go along with how we play. Playing does not end with adulthood!  It's freeing and enables decisions to be made through reaction rather than strong pressure to do things right.  Why don't we let ourselves play anymore?  




The Antics of Romantics is an interactive show meaning that the audience plays roles throughout the performance just as much as the actors in the cast.  (If you're thinking of improv, you're right, but not entirely) It's basically unselfish theatre because while most of the time you go to see a show to only be entertained by the actors, interactive theatre requires "spect-actors" to be apart of telling the story.  I am giving you the spark-noted version of the spark notes right now because there is so much more to it, but I wanted to give you a brief definition so you can better understand a bit better.

Interactive theatre requires the actors to be completely present and aware not only of their own actions but every single action that is going on around them.  You never know where another person's slight turn of the head might lead you, so go with it!

Along with being present and aware, you must completely trust other people, audience included.  We did an exercise to further understand our ability to trust and I found that I am much more comfortable trusting others than I am trusting myself with other people.  Which should have probably been obvious to me? But seeing it play out in such a simple exercise brought much stronger clarity.

The coolest part of all the exercises and the workshops in general was understanding humans better.  We are all communicating something and most of the time it's not through words.  Do I even notice or am I too concerned with my next "line" to even react to what the other person is already giving me?  Will I want to play along?

Like I said... I'm in the process of processing.