In this week’s edition of A New Normal, we’re exploring key shifts in how we create, consume, and imagine entertainment.
Doors have closed on concert halls and theaters and theme parks. Production is a near impossibility for Hollywood, slowing the once steady stream of ‘the new.’
In this ‘pause,’ people are rethinking what entertainment can be. Both ‘creators’ and ‘consumers’ are realizing that in order to access the benefits of entertainment — inspiration, escape, comfort, release — with limited resources, we need to tap our imaginations. Imagination, a muscle that most of us don’t use enough, is more necessary now than ever.
Doug Nevin is a theater producer in New York. While Doug acknowledges that everyone is hurting and that “no one can wear the crown of Most Impacted,” COVID has been unbearably difficult for those who work in the theater.
Doug and his colleagues have been wrestling with not only how to continue to support the theater community, but how to bring the power of theater — an experience inherently designed for live audiences — into peoples’ homes: “How do you bring entertainment to people who can’t come together collectively?”
Last weekend, he helped produce a live performance of Buyer & Cellar, starring Michael Urie, and directed by Nic Cory. Urie’s living room was the stage, and audiences tuned in from their living rooms, delighted by Urie’s portrayal of a man who takes a retail gig in Barbra Streisand’s basement (yes it’s absurd and wonderful). To pull it off, the team had to wholly reimagine the theater experience. How do you convert a home into a stage? How do you create makeshift lighting and sound equipment? “When Michael would perform in theater live, his performance is calibrated with an audiences’ laughter. What do you do when they’re not there?”
The initiative was a runaway success: 100,000+ households tuned into Broadway.com’s YouTube channel to watch it live — at a time, Doug acknowledged, when “very few people tune in live for anything anymore.” Most importantly, $200,000 was raised for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS COVID-19 Emergency Assistance Fund.
While we’re all waiting for the return of live Broadway, Doug pointed out that the most important thing right now is a fierce refusal to capitulate: “We’re not accepting that theater has gone away. It’s just different right now.”
“Having the audacity to imagine a way through is how we get through this. Maybe a limitation can become a launching pad for something else.”
It’s not just creators who are reimagining the rules. We spoke to four people across the country who are wielding their imaginations at home to ‘get through’ without entertainment as they know it.
Arthur reminds us that ‘permission’ opens the door to imagination.
Although he lives in New York, Arthur is a proud Walt Disney World pass holder: “I loved Disney as a kid because it was a safe space that provided structure in some ways but also allowed you to do whatever you wanted, to escape from the world. You had permission to let go and have fun. As an adult, I crave that.”
To Arthur, imagination isn’t just a nice-to-have. It isn’t just an escape valve. It unlocks potential: “Imagination is directly linked to innovation, creativity, the betterment of humankind… but also personal happiness. At its core, imagination allows you to give happiness to yourself and others.” And COVID is giving Arthur permission to indulge his imagination (not unlike Disney World):
“Now is the time to build that imagination muscle. There’s nothing else to do, and there’s no one there to judge you. You’re allowed to be silly.”
He and his partner are trying to think of COVID confinement as an opportunity to open the door to a place in their minds too often confined by life’s normal routines: “Last week we turned our bathroom into a day spa with haircuts, hair dyes and a tiki drink service. We made sure to book our appointments so there was a schedule. That’s where the fun and the silliness comes in. This isn’t something adults do well, typically.”
Joe’s kids give him permission to improvise new ways of playing — for them and for himself.
As a parent, Joe is trying to come up with new ways to keep his 4 and 2-year-old kids stimulated, happy, and growing without daycare — creating new games with the same old toys, playing hide-and-seek in ten-minute intervals between meetings, and designing treehouses late at night without any experience in architecture or construction. “As a therapist, I used to use a lot of improv to help people with their social anxiety. It develops skills to respond in the moment and deal with the unexpected. When I’m with my kids now, that’s also what I’m doing. You have just a thought and then you run with it.”
Joe is realizing that he’s benefitting from this new level of improvisation as much as his kids are — it’s giving him permission to go off-script: “I find myself taking risks, caring less about how this is going to land and more just trying things out. There’s less worrying about the past and the future. We’re more focused on the present… I think we could all benefit from more of this thinking when we go back to the office.”
Ashley and Nate are dreaming of new ways to bring the inspiration of global travel inside.
Ashley and Nate have always embraced a traveler’s mindset. In the last year, they’ve been to Italy and Costa Rica as well as numerous ‘staycations’ at hotels around their home city of LA. For them, travel is about a change of perspective: “The reason we like traveling is because everything feels different. There’s this newness that feels even better than the niceness.”
Now that they’re trapped at home, Ashley and Nate are craving inspiration but “Netflix binging can only take you so far.” So, they have decided to change their physical environment to bring the joy of travel to them: “We’re now thinking about our house as a luxury hotel.”
The trick isn’t just in the decor or the quality; it’s in intentionally creating new moments of discovery in a space they know like the back of their hand: “Little things provide a lot of newness, and can give you some of that buzz of traveling. It can be something as small as changing your shower head. You can make this thing you do everyday feel amazingly different.” They’ve even gone so far as to put mini shampoo bottles from their favorite hotels in the shower, and invest in silk pajama sets and robes.
Dane unlocks his mind to ‘host’ memorable Parties of One.
Dane identifies as the ultimate extrovert. Now that others are out of the picture, Dane is realizing the only person left to entertain is himself. “I’m always the host… but now that there aren’t people to host, I’ve been making a Dancing Alone playlist and thinking, ‘what if I were planning a party for just me?’ Entertainment has now turned into self-care rather than socialization.”
Rather than looking outward to the world, Dane is looking inward: “It’s a really good time to discover what stimuli exists within.” He uses tools like candles, music, and cannabis to inspire him in the process: “Pot is a great tool for turning people inwards. The way it allows you to lower your self-criticism and heighten your sense of introspection can be really great for creating comfortable, generative, soft, opening experiences. It can also help you change modes without changing rooms — as though lifting and lowering a curtain on a stage.”
Throughout this process, Dane is learning he doesn’t need anyone else or anything to be truly entertained: “We don’t need to be skydiving to feel a thrill. We’re realizing that what’s already in our heads can be entertaining.”
COVID may be the ultimate test of the adage “creativity is born from constraints.” While everyone is missing the world of entertainment they know and love, they’re appreciating this moment to discover what they can dream up.
A New Normal is a series by Redscout, a strategy and design consultancy. The series examines how COVID-19 is changing the world and envisions how these shifts are reshaping our work and that of our collaborators, our clients, our friends. Sign up to the newsletter here.
