PLAY is Not a Four Letter Word

Photo by Katherine Hanlon

Love this title. Play is Not a Four Letter Word. Wish I had thought of it but I didn’t.  It was the name of a wonderful Global Play Brigade (GPB) workshop that I attended a few weeks ago. For the record, I have no trouble with four letter words; they’re some of my favorites.

Since we launched in June of 2020, the GPB has held over 225 free workshops (or playshops, as we sometimes call them) online via Zoom and WhatsApp. These sessions combine a mix of play, impro, music, movement, and conversation. Over 85 talented and caring performance activists, educators, applied improvisers, clowns and therapists, from around the world have volunteered their time to offer these sessions. More than 4,000 people from 50 different countries have participated so far. The GPB was formed during the Covid-19 pandemic to do just that: provide social connection, emotional support, joy, laughter, and conversation to help our fellow human beings as we weathered this crisis together.

I don’t get to go to all of the GPB sessions (I wish I could!), but I do try to participate in as many as I can. I knew I didn’t want to miss this one.

25 people from around the world gathered on Zoom. The Play is Not a Four Letter Word workshop had attracted people from South Africa, the Netherlands, Israel, US, Germany, Puerto Rico, Nigeria, Denmark, Finland and Gibraltar. It was led by the multi-talented Marian Rich, Jeff Gordon, and Jeff Aron. Jeff A. initiated this particular workshop. He’s the former Director of External Affairs of Fountain House, a national mental health non-profit fighting to improve health, increase opportunity and reduce social and economic isolation for people with serious mental illness. Fountain House spearheaded the innovative Clubhouse model with over 200 Clubhouses in the US, and 320 around the globe. Jeff was eager to invite and include Fountain House Clubhouse members from around the world in the broad and expanding community of the GPB. As a longtime activist around issues of mental health, social change, and human development, I was especially excited at the prospect of bringing together the Clubhouses and the GPB.

The workshop had a simple design: everyone was invited to share a one-minute personal story that made them happy. The rest of us then responded to the story. We typed our responses in the chat. How did it make us feel? What did it conjure up for us? What did we like? What did we see, learn, or experience? Then, the original storyteller had another minute to share their reaction to our responses.

They shared delightful short stories. Some told with ease and within the time limit. Others were more difficult to get out, but they were still delightful and heartfelt. And the responses in the chat! Such a love story! Playing with our stories is fun. I felt like I too was on the beach. I like the sound of your voice. Thoughtful, personal, generous. And then the responses to the responses: Wow, I had no idea this would affect you all this way. I feel listened to. I was so nervous but now I feel really good.

Stories are a wonderful thing. We all love them, and we fill the world with them. This workshop wasn’t just about stories though. It was a bunch of strangers from around the world playing with stories as a way to co-create conversations. People discovering and creating human connection and possibility. A poetic, rich, layered story-in-the-making that hadn’t existed before we came together to create it.

That’s what the Global Play Brigade is about. Creating opportunities for us to co-create, play with, and perform new kinds of conversations. Last week, we were beginning to collaborate with folks in the Clubhouses. The week before, we were playing with our emotions with young people in Nigeria. A month earlier, we were performing and playing with stress and exhaustion with frontline healthcare workers in Mexico.

Next week? Come find out and create it with others. Play is not a four letter word. Play is a vehicle for dancing with and around words, silence, emotions, assumptions,pain, joy, and much more.

Apropos of nothing (except playing around with how many letters there are in a word), one of the longest words in any language is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. Try saying that four times (or one time) fast.

Let’s Play!
#PlayitForward#ChangeOurWorld.

Something cool…

At the end of each of my blogs I share a neat thing I found (or a friend sent me). For today, check out 100,000 Stars, where you can tour the whole galaxy. Budget travel, anyone?