This feature film was made for the purpose of helping improvisers to know something about the roots of their craft and to see how one of its founders has spent a lifetime exploring improvisational formats.

The project is the brainchild of Willie Wyllie, CEO of the Canadian Improv Games, Directed by Mike Fly, and written by Michael Golding.

Enjoy!

Please bring the film to the attention of your improv community. Feel free to put a link to the film on your website. You may also show it in public for a reasonable admission price (and keep the proceeds for continuing your work in improvisation).

© 2009 Life-Play

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Music is by The Orchestral Movement of 1932. The song is titled “Lost On Corners.”

To learn more about the Player/Guide relationship, purchase our Life-Play Handbook. It’s now available for sale online!

In rapid succession I got: A girl admonishing her mother for accusing her of being gay because of the way she dresses. A boy exasperated by his friend’s constant pining for a girl, yet unable to muster up the courage to ask her out. A girl excitedly admitting to a guy how much she is attracted to him. A boy setting his mother straight on the fact that being gay doesn’t mean he is promiscuous–like his mother is.

Michael recently wrote a documentary film about David Shepherd, scheduled to tour festivals in 2011, and will have a book coming out chronicling his life teaching improv to teens. Very exciting! Please join us for a Life-Playing Training call to play Never Say and our other games!

Golding, in cartoon form, circa 2007.

Over at The Frontal Cortex blog, Jonah Lehrer profiled a recent neuroscientific paper by Michael Posner and Brenda Patoine on the scientific benefits of play:

If there were a surefire way to improve your brain, would you try it? Judging by the abundance of products, programs and pills that claim to offer “cognitive enhancement,” many people are lining up for just such quick brain fixes. Recent research offers a possibility with much better, science-based support: that focused training in any of the arts–such as music, dance or theater–strengthens the brain’s attention system, which in turn can improve cognition more generally.

We know that the brain has a system of neural pathways dedicated to attention. We know that training these attention networks improves general measures of intelligence. And we can be fairly sure that focusing our attention on learning and performing an art–if we practice frequently and are truly engaged–activates these same attention networks. We therefore would expect focused training in the arts to improve cognition generally.

Developing Life-Play and playing regularly has profoundly changed my life. As Lehrer alludes to, each person finds their flow state in different activities: work, life, hobbies, athletics or the arts. For me, improv has improved my emotional intelligence and made me, I feel, a better listener.

Maturity – to recover the seriousness one had as a child at play. – W.H. Auden [paraphrasing Nietszche]

We are regularly asked, “What is Life-Play?” We are still discovering, but in an effort to clarify and entice, David and our intern Tony (from UMass Amherst) put together a Frequently Asked Questions page.

Enjoy! Call us if it sparks your interest.

And please ask us any additional questions you may have in the comments section below…

Are you open to roam?. . . .

. . . .over memories you don’t usually explore,
attitudes you don’t frequently share,
a skill like story-telling you don’t often use,
releases you don’t regularly open,
a poem you’ve never improvised.

Our collection of Life-Play phone games reveals opinions and feelings
you may not even be aware of.

So, welcome! self-discovery.

You are moving under your own state of amazement.
The only other person to see you shape a new you is your game partner:
this morning she’s an old friend in Beijing
or at midnight your carefully chosen next door neighbor.

Long distance is no obstacle today. Go for It!

Declare yourself open to roam every day from 8am to 9 AM;
from 10pm to 10:30 PM
or Sunday afternoon?
Sipping a beer? Nibbling? Make it fun:
Using cordless, barge around the spaces
through which you play:
breathe, pout, smile, curve, stamp.

Clap–

Learn to play brand new games.

Play daily.

Hello, you’re now in partnership with yourself.

You’re opening yourself to your vision of self–
today or tomorrow. Welcome aboard.

Welcome to your select tomorrow.

David Shepherd, my friend and co-founder of Life-Play, turns 85 today. An improv celebration began early this morning in Belchertown—David’s marathon birthday wish for 24/7 improv and play. I can only hope that I’m half as playful when I’m David’s age!

David, it’s been wonderful to get to know you over the past eighteen months and become close friends. I’ve learned immensely from your creative instincts and your honest play. Thank you for sharing lessons from a your lifetime of play.

May your birthday wishes come true! May Life-Play be shared with the wider world and grow with evolving adventures. This morning, testing a new adventure with you, called Dream, I was reminded of a book I read I as a child, Grandfather Twilight.

You’re the theatrical grandfather I never had.

Thank you, David!

Happy Birthday!

Please join us at Life-Play in wishing David a Happy Birthday and check back for updates of the playful Birthday festivities!

Update: