Theatre for Lifelong Learning Artist Interview: Clay Drinko, author of Play Your Way Sane
Text: Linda Lau and Rae Mansfield interview with author Clay Drinko
TFLL: Hello, we are Rae and Linda, and this is Theatre for Lifelong Learning. Our guest today is Clay Drinko, PhD. He self-describes as a smartypants PhD but he definitely won’t lord it over you. He’s an educator and the author of Play Your Way Sane: 120 Improv-Inspired Exercises to Help You Calm Down, Stop Spiraling, and Embrace Uncertainty and Theatrical Improvisation, Consciousness, and Cognition. He’s also an improv researcher and contributor at Psychology Today and Lifehack.
TFLL: Tell us a little bit about how you got into theatre.
Clay Drinko: I was on track when I was in middle school to be, as much as one can be on track in middle school to be anything, to do pre-med. I think I saw something on PBS about these kids that went to Harvard Medical School, and I saw how proud my dad was of these kids that he didn’t know.
So, of course, my twelve-year-old self was like, “I’m going to do that thing I don’t understand.” Then in ninth grade one of my friends dragged me to a radio play of Winnie the Pooh. They said at the last minute, “We’re taping this and we need someone to play Little Skunk.” And I was like “Not into it, not an actor.” So they convinced me to do it. When it got to my part, we had to keep stopping because I guess I’d made some sort of choice for Little Skunk that was hilarious.
Everyone was cackling and laughing, and that was the minute for me, that magical moment where you realize that you can have a connection with people, that they’re hanging on every word you’re saying, and that you can make them laugh. I was hooked from then on.
I went on to undergrad still thinking I was going to do pre-med. Then a few months into my freshman year, I switched and did full-blown acting and was a performance major.
TFLL: How is theatre a lifelong practice for you?
Clay Drinko: For me, it’s become more of a lifelong practice recently. I “retired” from professional acting about five years ago. I had done some TV and film work, and I was at a level where I felt like I was booking some jobs and shouldn’t quit. But then I had to step back and look at whether I was using all my skills and abilities. Was I fulfilled? Being on Law & Order for eight seconds was cool, but I wouldn’t say that it was using my talent and super fulfilling in a broad general way. I decided to let that go and I went into teaching.
I went back to school to get my master’s in education and shifted away from acting. I thought that was going to be hard for me because I identified as a performer and an actor. But I find facilitating workshops and teaching, and even writing, to be more creatively fulfilling. I feel like I’m using my brain, as well as my creativity. I feel like it’s a performance, even when I’m writing, so I actually don’t miss the performing part.
A lot of people think that I’m still an improviser and can’t wait to go to an improv slam. I just don’t have that hunger to do that. I feel fulfilled by taking the skills from acting and applying them to my everyday life, especially when it comes to social and emotional skills. Yes, I go to therapy and I’ve gone to therapy a lot of my life. However, acting and improv have given me so many more tools to be able to identify what my emotions are, to be more in the moment, and to be more present. That’s what I take away from theatre that I’ll always always use.
TFLL: How do you think that theater can help older adults?
Clay Drinko: The social aspects of improv classes are really, really helpful for people and for older people. They’ve done studies. I wrote a Psychology Today article about improv and dementia and how it is helpful for people with dementia and also people living in assisted living homes. The idea is that if your memory isn’t as trustworthy as it used to be, it can be a super scary position to be in.
With improv you don’t have to worry about that, because all that matters is the here and now. For people that are having memory problems, improv is especially helpful, but it goes beyond that. It’s a handy tool to be able to mix and mingle with other people when you may feel isolated, laugh with people, and connect and bond. I think that those are the most important reasons why improv is helpful for older people.
TFLL: We’ve been doing our own research on play pedagogy and the benefits of theater and how improv helps older adults be in the now and be present. People seem to be becoming more aware of the many benefits of theatre.
Clay Drinko: It doesn’t have to be in an improv class. It doesn’t have to be an acting class. Those classes have a lot of other benefits. Any new skill that keeps the brain going is important. People have to have a purpose. People have to have something that they’re looking forward to and there are a whole bunch of different extracurricular activities that could do that. The great thing about theatre is you also have the social emotional and brain boosting benefits.
TFLL: Tell us about your book and the Play Your Way Sane project, and why it is called Play Your Way Sane.
Clay Drinko: My book Play Your Way Sane just came out. Simon and Schuster just published it a couple weeks ago. It really started in grad school.
I did my dissertation on improv comedy and how it affects the brain/mind and that was the first book-length academic look at connecting cognitive science and improv, specifically theatrical improv. There had been a lot on musical improv, but mine was the first to cobble together a theory about what’s going on in people’s brains when they’re improvising. And so I knew that improv was amazing. I had personally experienced it and I knew that it helped people shift their focus, and as improvisers say, “get out of their heads” and be more “in the moment.”
However, I lived in Manhattan at the time, and I was super in my head. I was super disconnected from other people, irritable, angry in general, and not in the moment. There was a disconnect for me.
My dissertation was turned into an academic book that came from my own personal experience and that’s sort of how I am as an academic. I take that personal experience, then I want to figure it out from there, and do the research. So that happened again, where I felt like a hypocrite. I knew about how improv could benefit me.
When I was interviewing improvisers, they would say over and over that getting up on stage was this magical experience where as soon as I stepped on stage, I was in the zone. I didn’t have to worry. I was super creative and charismatic. But then an hour after the show, that fades away. Many improvisers are super anxious, super in their head, super awkward people in general.
I wanted to figure out how I could take improv principles and apply them to everyday life. I set out to create improv lessons, lessons that theatre practitioners all know about, and then translated improv games to be what I call “improv-inspired exercises” or “everyday games,” the things that you can do all by yourself. You can do it anytime during the day to stop overthinking, be more in the moment, and be more connected.
Why is it called Play Your Way Sane? I love a good…what is it called? Assonance. Vowel sounds. I love that.
With Play Your Way Sane I wanted to take it a little bit away from improv. The whole project started from improv and improv principles, but the games are not all improv games. The through line in it is about play and tapping into a childlike sense of curiosity and discovery, only about yourself. That’s where the “play” comes from. And the “sane” part is yes, I was trying to be irreverent.
I wanted it to have that feeling of being conversational, like one of your friends chit chatting with you, but also being super informed and going through all these different improv principles and how it could benefit your day.
I wanted it to be a departure from academic writing. I think that was important because I also wanted the writing itself to feel improvisational and be improvisational for me. I never planned out “I’m going to reference Kim Kardashian” an unusual amount of times or “I’m going to tell this number of super embarrassing stories.” That was never in my plan.
This book is an extension of my teaching and I wanted it to be super candid. If I can be so open, honest, and experimental I hope the reader can too, because I’ve lowered my status to help the reader feel emboldened to play around and try new things.
TFLL: What do you think older adults can get out of your book?
Clay Drinko: I imagine that when the kids are gone and when it’s maybe a little quieter, I can work on what I consider the final stage, which is taking an introspective look at who I am. Why do I react certain ways? What do I value? What do I want to spend my time doing? And also, how can I make however many years I have left be as playful, joyous, and present as I can? The whole idea of shifting your focus to the external and not what’s going on in your head. That does help you remember what’s going on and helps you savor the moment. I think it’s extra important in those final years to hopefully not give in to negativity and isolation, and I feel like the book could be a way to help people connect, and be more positive and playful.
TFLL: How have you changed your theatre practice over the past year, in what has been a very strange year for theatre, performance, drama, improv, and living life?
Clay Drinko: I have definitely changed. Even though I was not performing and I wasn’t doing any sort of theater acting, I was starting to get into leading corporate workshops and getting into that kind of work. That obviously came to a crashing halt.
I spent seven years writing this book, but the past year made me double down and realize how important it is to pluck out the social and emotional skills of theatre and acting and provide that to people. We don’t know how long this current pandemic is going to last, we don’t know what the next shoe is to drop. To me, it seems mental health has had a spotlight placed on it in the past year. It was a problem before, but it’s a bigger problem now. More people are talking about it. For me, I imagine that I’m going to dedicate time, I think forever, to figuring out how I can apply my research to the individual.
I have a lot of friends in [theatre and performing arts], just like you all do. It’s heartbreaking for people to not be able to pivot right now. Like, “My show closed and I’m not doing anything until my show reopens.”
I want to always be thinking about how we can take the skills from improv, acting, and theatre to be able to teach others that there are so many places that theatre arts professionals could go. I hope my work inspires people to think outside the box and not just say, “I have to put on shows.”
TFLL: What’s the best piece of advice you have ever received or given about theatre or improv?
Clay Drinko: I want to answer both of those. For advice received, it’s probably Keith Johnstone. I got to take one of his workshops in Berlin and it was amazing. He’s such a great teacher and his whole thing is. Everybody says it now who teaches improv and acting, but it was great to hear from him. He’s been saying this for fifty or sixty years: “You don’t have to be good.”
He would say, “Do something awful. Just do garbage.” And I say that all the time. When I sit down to write and just write some garbage, it’s so liberating. It’s such an easy thing to tell yourself. You can also say it a little more colorfully. Like I’ll say, “F it,” and start writing. It really helps me. Just that act of “I don’t care if anyone reads this, I don’t care if it’s the worst thing that’s ever been written or acted ever.” That’s a quick way to help you get out of your head and stop worrying about what people are thinking about you.
For advice given: I would tell students during acting class, “Shit in the middle of the floor.” For me, that is the best metaphor for making a big choice. There’s nothing more frustrating in a beginner class for people to just be like “meh meh.” You have to do something, right? You have to make a big choice. It could fail miserably, but you have to give us something.
I think that’s tremendous advice because that is how the real world works, too. If you’re standing on the wall like “meh. meh. meh,” not writing the book, not making the cold call to try to make a sale or whatever it is that makes you nervous, then it’s not gonna happen. It’s totally a cliché, but framing it as “Shit in the middle of the floor” is walking the walk. If the acting teacher is telling you to shit in the middle of the floor, then come on, you gotta do something big.
TFLL: Worst case scenario, it will be hilarious. Best case scenario, something amazing might come out of it.
Clay Drinko: Absolutely. And worst-case scenario, it’s also an improv principle, but you have to justify the mistakes. You can’t go back in time and make it not a mistake. You’d have to justify it. How does this make sense in my life? Where do I go from here? Instead of letting mistakes crush you and hold you back. Yes, it’s easier said than done, but it’s also something that you can practice.
Taking an improv class is a kind of exposure therapy. Are you rewarded for not going? Yeah, you don’t make any mistakes, you don’t look stupid, and nobody laughs at you. But then, if you go to an improv class people laugh at you in a good way. You make all these connections and friends and you’re laughing. Then you’re rewarded for taking the risk. That can work in or out of an improv class. You’ve got to do something and yeah it might be a mistake, but you can justify it and move it along.
TFLL: Thank you, Clay, for taking a risk today with us. This is our first artist interview, so congratulations on being the first.
Clay Drinko: I could talk about this stuff all day and I love your specific angle. I think it’s so important for people to be talking about. There’s so much that gets written and talked about. As far as play for kids that’s like a no brainer, but play for adults, and especially play for older adults, it is so important. More research is going to come out that will show it prolongs life, keeps people’s brains humming, preserves social connections, and builds new ones. I think the work that you’re doing is so important, and thank you for letting me to chat with you today.