April 14, 2013 - 4 Comments;

When Work Is Play: 25 Years Later

NOTE: my 2013 additions to this post may be considered biased. In fact, they are biased, never mind “may be considered”.  Fair warning. 

October 14, 2009

When my son Sam was about five – oh, so many years ago – he and his best friend Alex had a conversation in the sandbox about the different kinds of work people do to make a living.

As I strained to hear, they listed all the jobs they could think of and the specific work each job required: teachers, doormen, pediatricians, bus drivers (can you tell they were city kids?) the green grocer, our neighborhood barber… their descriptions were straightforward and accurate.

As they ventured into unfamiliar territory such as street-sweepers, the mayor (Ed Koch reached everyone) deep sea divers and astronauts, the job descriptions became expansive. The little guys were imagining what they might be when they grew up, and the possibilities were limitless. 

A photographer-in-the-making

When Alex’s mom came to pick him up I re-capped my favorite quote of the afternoon for her, regarding our sons’ versions of our work: 

Alex: My Mom’s a writer. She writes. 

Sam: My Mom’s an actress. She auditions. 

Later that night, Sam and I reflected back on the sandbox conversation.

“Mom, when you go to work, you do a play, right?”  

Yes, I told him.

There was extended silence as he thought this through.

And finally:  “That’s what I want to do, Mom. When I grow up, I want my work to be play.” 

There it was. At 5 years old he had established a vision for his future.

In the picture above, Sam is 7, shooting one of many moments on a family trip to Italy.  

Sam with 4x5 MAINE
Sam w Digital @ NMAI

AND NOW WE PICK UP AGAIN 25 YEARS LATER… 

As Sam grew, he continued to explore work as play: he was never without a camera, loved playing the drums, developed a hunger for travel as well as collaboration, and founded a rock band with some buddies. 

Above Left: on the island of North Haven, Maine, preparing an onsite shoot of a Community Center project; Above Right: at the National Museum of the American Indian on the Mall in Washington D.C.; Below Right: experimenting with his new 4×5 camera in 2002, taking shots of his family in New Hampshire.

Sam w 4x5 HANOVER

It’s now 25 years since Sam declared that his work would be play, and he’s a successful photographer, not to mention a back-up drummer for a bunch of bands. 

As I think back on those years of watching him exercise what I now refer to as his theatrical intelligence – before I’d even come up with the term – it’s no secret that I was embarrassingly proud. And rightfully so.

Not only is his career thriving, he’s just launched a spin-off photography company that’s experiencing explosive growth: The Photo Booth Party.

If you observe my son hard-at-play these days, and making a living to boot, his joy is impossible to resist. It is positively contagious.

No wonder. He has made his vision a reality. 

 

February 18, 2013 - 5 Comments;

The Actor Is What We See, But Only 1/8 Of What Is There

An earlier version of this post was published on March 7, 2012.

When I work with individuals or groups on ways Theatrical Intelligence can make a difference in their lives, my goal is to stimulate an exploration into their creative core.

The term Theatrical Intelligence evokes responses that range from: ”Yes! It’ll help me when I have to give a presentation” to “Not my kind of thing – don’t like being in the spotlight” or “No way. Acting? Yuck!” There is an assumption that Theatrical Intelligence = Actor.

What we see

In the theatrical production model, the Actor is what we see, but only 1/8 of what is there. He or she wouldn’t be up on the stage if it weren’t for the Writer, Producer, Director, Designer, Manager, Technician and Critic. The talent and skill contained in each of these roles is interdependent, and without them, the Actor wouldn’t be seen at all!

What's Really There

What’s Really There

 

Creative collaboration requires that each person within a group takes on his/her most comfortable role, and everyone contributes to the creative potential of the collective. It is built on the premise that all collaborators’ talents and skills complement one another. In other words if I don’t have a particular strength, one of my cohorts will.

Recently I worked with a young woman who told me “I don’t have one creative bone in my body. It’s just the way I’ve always been and I’m fine with it.” She was politely annoyed that I didn’t accept her “non-creativity”. What became abundantly clear during a quick writing exercise, is that she was a born technician: the only one who could get the electronic hook-up to work; and a gifted manager: organizing a group photo while keeping large egos in the room satisfied, and everyone grateful.

When I pointed out her strengths in those roles, she explained “That’s the easy stuff!” and gave us our biggest laugh of the day. Then nearly everyone admitted their techno-ignorance, impatience with managing differing personalities, and that the combination of her geeky-gift and people-management-savvy was something they longed for in their employees.

The talented young Technician/Manager took all this in, and with just the hint of a grin, said: “Well, maybe I have a couple of creative bones…” My response? Damn right.

Understanding her Theatrical Intelligence that day, she fully experienced the fun part of being smart. Yes, it was easy. And the smartness was all her own.

 

January 22, 2013 - 4 Comments;

A Magical Birthday Ritual

I just wished my brother Jim a Happy Birthday on Facebook. He would have turned 58 today. I did the same thing two years ago, here on my blog .

If Jim were alive today we would’ve had our annual East-Coast/West-Coast mutual birthday call tonight at midnight (Eastern) 9:00pm (Pacific).  It was our little ritual – sort of a secret handshake - because my birthday is the day after his.

The depth of my memories confound me as January 22nd arrives each year. Today I remembered you in 1956, Jim. You were 11 months old, and NOT enjoying the individual photos being taken of you and your siblings for the family Christmas card. I was 9, and my heart went out to you as you waited around for the professional photographer to do whatever was required to make the FIVE of us photogenic – one at a time. No wonder you were crying.  As I look at the photo I can see a tear glisten in your right eye. Thankfully we found a tinkling bell and it did the trick. 

You just needed a little magic.

Now jump ahead 44 years. There’s a picture of you in THE BOSS column of the NY Times and you talk about being paid $5 to invent a computer language when you were 12. You’re holding your new invention: the e-book.

This time you supplied the magic. 

Of course the photos were directly connected to our little ritual. I mean, we magically created simultaneous birthdays every year!  

So HAPPY BIRTHDAY, little bro. Thanks for the magic.  

Talk to you at midnight.

 

January 7, 2013 - 2 Comments;

Emptying-Santa-Spam-and-Other-Silly-Stuff

My spam folder was full this morning (neglected by me over the holidays) and just as I was about to delete the ubiquitous penile enhancement posts, I was tickled to see a couple of messages from Santa…

 “Your article really did turn the light on for me personally as far as this specific subject matter goes.” Signed: Santa Claus Calls

“In the grand scheme of things you actually get an A for effort and hard work. For right now I shall subscribe to your position.” Signed: SClauswerks

 Santa’s style sure reflects his spirit, unlike the other 98%:

“I was wondering how to cure acne naturally, and then I found your blog.” Signed: Rickets (Yuck!)

Or 

“1st, you wish a 3-season sleeping bag with the casket and the semi-rectangular style; the added amore due to the abridgement of autogenous space.” Signed “Polo Outlet Online”. 

(WHY NOT “Casket Sleeping Bags”?) Go figure.

Asian language spam is on the rise: 

を考慮して力を入れすぎ傷つけかねない表面のときは、ヘアケア3度に達します効果といっても少しは高いが、負担のリスクも大きい。

And… *blush*… I actually used Google Translate: “Even though a little higher at the surface that could hurt excessive force to account for, and the effect of hair care reached three times greater risk of burden.” Signed: Luxury-Brand-something. 

OK – enough! But then I saw one of Santa’s comments that seemed rather sleep-deprived, or even delusional:

“I like this information and it has given me some sort of desire to succeed for some reason.”

Unless… d’you suppose Santa struggles with self-esteem,  just like the rest of us?

Guess I’ll check my Santa-Spam next December.

And now… (She presses DELETE.) On with 2013.

 

Illustration: 123RF (Royalty Free) Stock Photos

 

December 25, 2012 - 2 Comments;

Holiday Greetings from Theatrical Intelligence

Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Yuletide, or any other Holiday, may it be filled with abundant creativity and joy! 

 
 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s wishing you and your loved ones a Theatrical New Year!


October 15, 2012 - 20 Comments;

Theatrical Staging or Real Estate Staging: A Lesson Learned

My husband Roger and I recently sold our big old New York City apartment on Riverside Drive. We had moved into the building  in time to celebrate our daughter’s first birthday in 1975, and six years later our son was born there (well, almost – we got to the hospital just in the nick of time!) When the apartment next door came on the market we borrowed money to connect the two spaces so our kids could run and play.

We were two country kids at heart, lucky in love and real estate, living our dream in Manhattan with a spectacular river view.

Thirty-seven years later we knew it was time to cash in our asset and (gulp) move on. Our kids had been happily independent for years, and even with two grandchildren FIVE bedrooms was ridiculous. 

Deanna Kory, our highly esteemed real estate broker, recommended staging the apartment. What? Theatrical staging refers to the mounting of a play; real estate staging, I learned, means removing all traces of people living in the apartment so prospective buyers won’t get distracted, and will imagine themselves living there. 

I hated the idea. One theatrical truth I’ve learned over the years is that specificity makes a landscape universal; removing specificity makes it generic. Yet Deanna advised that staging could increase the selling price from 5 to 125 times the cost of staging (!) so  Roger and I immediately got to work.

© Samuel Morgan Photography

Plasterers, painters, window-washers, rented furniture (beige), lamps (square), towels (ugly) and chatchkas (weird) invaded our turf. Amanda Wiss and her company Urban Clarity got us organized, and our son Sam, an architectural photographer, did a photo-shoot of the results. The fine photos didn’t resemble the comfy home in which we’d raised our family, but it sure was ready to sell. 

Preparing to show the apartment reminded us of the half-hour-call that precedes every theatrical performance: it looks hectic but really isn’t. It’s a meticulous routine.

Our routine: make beds, poof pillows, empty wastebaskets, clear every surface, vacuum (Roger), arrange fresh flowers (me), leave no traces of normal life, exit to the Metro Diner. Contemplate our future, wait for Deanna’s “all clear” text, then head on home. 

Eventually the perfect buyers arrived. And as the lovely young mother vividly described how her family would live in our space, I knew the staging had worked. 

But there’s another chapter to our story… where did we go? 

HA!  Not very far: we are now living 10 feet 2 inches below our former home. And here’s the beauty part: our new apartment was NOT staged, which I believe is the reason we got it.  

We were always fond of the elderly couple downstairs – they were good neighbors. Distinguished college professors who loved world travel and NY’s Upper West Side, they often gathered students in their book-lined home for heady discussions of physics, language and art.

It seemed natural that when our dear neighbors died (a couple of years apart) it was in the home they loved. In fact, their clothes were still hanging in the closets when the apartment was being shown, and their books and paintings were everywhere. It looked as if one of their salons was about to begin. Their apartment reflected a highly specific way of life –  in other words, it was staged  –  according to the theatrical definition of the word. And it simply did not sell.

We knew that our neighbors’ apartment was for sale six months before ours, and we would’ve bought it in an instant if we didn’t have to sell ours first. But we couldn’t make an offer contingent upon a sale. Then…   Deanna’s brilliant and diplomatic negotiating skills proved it’s not just a rumor that she’s the best realtor in New York: 428 days after the apartment came on the market our offer was accepted.

I will forever recommend real-estate-staging to anyone who wants to sell their apartment.

Theatrical staging? Nope. Though it sure worked in our favor!

In the meantime, the Hudson River is a most inspiring setting. Roger and I thank our lucky stars for it every day. 

We may have moved… but we’re still here. 

 

 

July 18, 2012 - 7 Comments;

Conflict in the Workplace? Follow Your Fear!

(Revised from a piece published September 30, 2009)

A Theatrical Intelligence blog reader posted a question a while ago about everyday conflict in the workplace, wondering if theatrical intelligence can help. Depending on the conflict of course, the answer is yes. As long as one is open to alternative ways of facing the challenge!

Conflicts at work are often reminiscent of family quarrels and hierarchies from our past: we feel embarrassed, uncomfortable, powerless, and usually that familiar 4-letter-word rears its ugly head: FEAR.

One of the great secrets in improvisation is to “follow your fear”, an expression coined 50 years ago at Second City by the late great Del Close.  Using this technique (even though it may seem counterintuitive) can yield surprising results.

Professional actors follow their fear in rehearsal and performance by looking for obstacles to overcome.  This creates dramatic tension, and requires them to step into unknown territory, which results in emotionally unpredictable, sometimes humorous behavior. When this behavior happens in places other than improvisation, we can laugh about it and learn from it – when it’s over!

The only way to really screw up in improvisation, is to deny “reality”. In this case “imaginary circumstances” = “reality”. This is another little jewel we can steal from improv.

For example, when two actors are on stage and one of them puts her jacket over her head to protect her from… no one knows what, yet… the reality of those imaginary circumstances are a GIFT to the other actor. (Is it raining? Are there pigeons above? Is there an enemy overhead?) One of the actors establishes what the jacket is protecting them from, the other actor accepts it as a gift, and that’s the reality upon which they build their story. 

In many workplaces a denial of reality is the norm: it’s “the elephant in the room” or “the dead moose on the table”, meaning no one dares mention the thing everyone knows is going on. Here’s the common wisdom: 

Denial of reality breaks down trust and builds up fear

Acceptance of reality opens up worlds of possibility

So, imagine this: the next time the current-conflict-at-hand happens yet again at work…  what if you follow your fear?  Accept the reality and have the courage to say “That dead moose on the table stinks – what are we going to do about it?” Or, to mimic a possible workplace scenario: “Is that another of your witty insults – again at my expense?”

Opportunities will leap out of nowhere for you and your colleagues. Why?  Because you’ve broken through the denial, acknowledged what is real, and cracked the conflict wide open. Can’t you just hear it? Try it! FOLLOW YOUR FEAR.

And please let us all know where your courage takes you – I suspect is worthy of acknowledegment. 

 

May 25, 2012 - No Comments

Theatrical Intelligence is Now Featured on Alltop

I am happy to announce that Theatrical Intelligence is now featured on the theatre page of Alltop, a highly rated aggregator of quality web content, sort of like the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.

From Alltop’s statement of purpose, the company’s intent…

…is to help you answer the question, “What’s happening?” in “all the topics” that interest you. You may wonder how Alltop is different from a search engine. A search engine is good to answer a question like, “How many people live in China?” However, it has a much harder time answering the question, “What’s happening in China?” That’s the kind of question that we answer. We do this by collecting the headlines of the latest stories from the best sites and blogs that cover a topic. We group these collections — “aggregations” — into individual web pages. Then we display the five most recent headlines of the information sources as well as their first paragraph.
Our topics run from adoption to zoology… with [literally] hundreds of other subjects along the way. You can think of Alltop as the “online magazine rack” of the web. We’ve subscribed to thousands of sources to provide “aggregation without aggravation.” To be clear, Alltop pages are starting points—they are not destinations per se. Ultimately, our goal is to enhance your online reading by… helping you discover sources that you didn’t know existed.

To me, being on Alltop means that prior to the publication of my book-in-progress, the idea of Theatrical Intelligence will be introduced to new readers.

I don’t mind telling you that this makes me very happy.


May 13, 2012 - 5 Comments;

My Mother’s Gift To Me… Via Frank McCourt


Jeanne O’Sullivan Sachs  (15 October 1920 – 19 July 2009)
Francis “Frank” McCourt   (19 August 1930 – 19 July 2009)


My mother was always a mystery to me. The oldest child in a large, Irish Catholic family, she was a brilliant beauty whose musical gifts inspired everyone around her.

I was the polar opposite: scrappy, frizzy-haired, cross-eyed, born to bluntly question and challenge the world. I was convinced throughout my childhood that I was adopted; how  could I possibly be related to such a refined, remote, creature?

It became a lifelong quest for me to make sense of the distant dynamic between Mom and me.

My mother was a gifted cellist, a child prodigy who grew up outside Boston during the Great Depression and became a soloist throughout central New England.

Awarded a scholarship to a prestigious music conservatory after high school, she chose instead to work as a secretary in a Harvard cancer research laboratory to help support her younger brothers and sisters. It was there she met her future husband: a young doctor of German-Jewish heritage who shared her love of music. It was the first of many sacrifices she was to make over the next 60 years of what she always termed a happy life. I never experienced my mother as happy. She always seemed far away to me – detached – as if she wished she were somewhere else.

It was probably no surprise that Mom gave up her solo career when she married; and that she played very little music during the years she birthed and raised six children. I struggled for decades to understand the irony of the life she chose as opposed to the life she might have built.

When I read Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes in 1996, it opened a window of understanding that changed my view of my mother forever. Never has a book had such profound impact on my daily life. Not that Jeanne O’Sullivan and Frank McCourt shared similar childhoods… When young Frank was growing up in Limerick, as he wrote in the first chapter of Angela’s Ashes: “It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood.”

Jeanne’s childhood was poor, Irish and Catholic, and filled with with the joy of music. As Mr. McCourt memorably wrote: “Happiness is hard to recall. It’s just a glow.” Those were the words that connected me to my mother.

It is somehow fitting that Mom and Frank McCourt died within hours of one another. As the Irish American journalist Pete Hamill wrote in The Irish Central (July 22, 2009): “Irony, as practiced by the Jews and the Irish, can be wielded as a weapon, but it is above all a kind of armor… Irony creates distance, a certain knowing detachment, while acknowledging membership in the club of human weakness and folly.” That was Jeanne O’Sullivan Sachs.

During her final days Mom kept her children laughing while whispering again and again that she loved us and was grateful for her happy life. I didn’t know that Frank McCourt was dying at that exact time. I wish I had thanked him for teaching me about the kind of happiness that is so unquantifiable that it just glows. Because that is what I treasure most about my mother: however far away she seemed to me, she always glowed.

Happy Mothers Day, Mom. And thank you, Mr. McCourt.

I’m imagining the two of you conversing, one more eloquent than the other, and wondering if you arrived at the gates of heaven together. Yes… I think magnificent music must have welcomed you as you danced your way into the kingdom.

April 30, 2012 - 8 Comments;

Woman Of Wisdom: A Ritual

In January my husband and I prepared to move for the first time in 37 years. We had to reduce the size of our library to fit into a smaller space, and deciding which books to keep became a crazy-making endeavor for me. There were hundreds of books I couldn’t bear to let go.

Day after day I thumbed through pages that once introduced me to worlds unknown. My gushing tears seemed disproportionate to the activity, as did my frantic scribbles of words I somehow had to hold close to me.

Just as I thought I might actually be losing my mind, it struck me that I was simply doing something I’d loved since I was a child: collecting meaningful quotes I never wanted to forget.

This simple act unintentionally launched a ritual that now brings joy to my daily routine: once a day I post a beloved quote on Twitter. Most of the quotes I collected were – no surprise to me – from women, so using the ubiquitous Twitter hashtag, I label each #WomanOfWisdom.

A sampler of wisdom selected from the past 30 days is listed below:

#WomanOfWisdom Maya Angelou: “A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.”

#WomanOfWisdom Emily Dickinson: “They say that God is everywhere, and yet we always think of Him as somewhat of a recluse.” (1878)

#WomanOfWisdom Bella Abzug: “I prefer the word ‘homemaker’ because ‘housewife’ always implies that there may be a wife someplace else.”

#WomanOfWisdom Lena Horne: ”It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it.”

#WomanOfWisdom Madeleine l’Engle: “The great thing about getting older is that you don’t lose all the other ages you’ve been.”

#WomanOfWisdom Rebecca West: “People call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that distinguish me from a doormat.” (1913)

#WomanOfWisdom Zora Neale Hurston: “Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.”

#WomanOfWisdom Ellen Parr: “The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.”

#WomanOfWisdom Emma Goldman: “Women need not always keep their mouths shut and their wombs open.”

#WomanOfWisdom Wilma Mankiller: “I’ve run into more discrimination as a woman than as an Indian.”

#WomanOfWisdom Shana Alexander: “The sad truth is that excellence makes people nervous.”

#WomanOfWisdom Sarah Bernhardt: “Life begets life. Energy creates energy. It is by spending oneself that one becomes rich.”

#WomanOfWisdom Anne Frank: “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”

#WomanOfWisdom Indira Gandhi: “You must learn to be still in the midst of activity and to be vibrantly alive in repose.”

#WomanOfWisdom Abigail Adams: “We have too many high-sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them.”

This ritual has eased the process of giving away my books. Over the past three months I’ve donated boxes and boxes to schools, libraries, bookshops, Materials for the Arts, and to my children and grandchildren of course.

A little piece of each book will be with me forever. And my hope is that the books will touch the hearts and minds and spirits of many who might not otherwise have been exposed to them. I love thinking about that.

How long do you suppose it will take to run out of wisdom?


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