The Spontaneous Playfulness of Creativity: Lessons from Interactive Theatre for Digital Games

Improvisation is intuition in action, a way to discover the muse and respond to her call. The outpourings of intuition consist of a continuous, rapid flow of choice, choice, choice. —Stephen Nachmanovich, Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art [14] This paper maintains that the practice and theories of improvisational and activist theatre can infuse interactive computer games with spontaneous, playful creativity. This playfulness can inspire not only character, relationship and social issue possibilities in the digital game development, but can also tease out creative ideas through live improvisational gameplay among development teams. Working from the premise that computer games are both a unique art form and an experiential way to rehearse social change, this paper suggests novel ways of drawing on the games and artistry of Stephen Nachmanovich, Ruth Zaporah, Uta Hagen, and Keith Johnstone, and the activism of Augusto Boal, David Diamond, and Richard Rohd to enhance computer gameplay experience. It also makes a call to action for kinaesthetic involvement in live gameplay, because getting up and trying the games is better than just reading about them. Author