The play's the thing.

When I was little, people often told me I was born as a thirty year old. Now that I'm almost thirty, I'm realizing how important it is to be young. These last few years, I've truly begun to understand the necessity of play in my life. I think that's why I continue to return to the arts again and again-- for their foundation in play.

When I was in graduate school, I wrote lit review after lit review about the cognitive, creative, and social effects of socio-dramatic play in non-arts classrooms (non-grad school translation: how essential imagination and extended periods of creativity are for learning in core subject areas). I built a thesis project around interactive play and cancer education. I co-taught session after session of professional development workshops with teachers who were trying to learn how to play in their classrooms again. Looking back, it's been the play-- the light-hearted, belly laughing, challenging kind of interaction with students, teachers, audiences, whomever-- that has kept me wanting more.

Today, I had the priveledge of working with my friend Becca in leading workshops for high schoolers in order to prepare them to see Macbeth later this week, produced by Rose of Athens Theatre. The workshops weren't particularly unique to things Becca and I had both taught before, but man! We had so much fun, and so did those high schoolers. Not only did we laugh, create secret handshakes, and die dramatic deaths, but I'm convinced that we also taught a difficult story to students and got them excited about seeing the show.

I wonder... did the 15th and 16th century audiences have pep rallies before performances? Because if they did, we did them justice today.

In this time of recentering and focusing in my life, Becca helped provide for me today something that I know for sure: I love to play. When work feels like play, it's not work.

The play's the thing.