Backstage @: Team X Improv Show - what's past is past

As of Monday night, Team X has doubled the number of shows under its belt. That is to say: two whole shows. And I'm pretty excited about that.

The lesson of the evening: to be in the moment and let go of everything else. We tend to be creatures of the past - your evaluation at work looks at the last year of performance, we play Monday morning quarterback to the previous weekend's game, and we critique ourselves for what might have been but wasn't. It's human nature, and it's hard to let go of what was or wasn't and look ahead. So before we went on, our coach gave us some great advice. He said to forget the last show, it's done & gone. As we stood in our warm up circle, he suggested that we look in the middle of that circle - whatever our show will be would be in there, in us.

It was good advice for what turned out to be a pretty good show. We'll still look back on it and critique ourselves for what we could have or shouldn't have done but in the context of learning and not berating ourselves. In the corporate world, my past bosses have called this "development areas." In the theater world it's not called criticism, it's called "giving notes." Either way, what's past is past. It's time to enjoy the moment and look ahead to the next rehearsal, the next show.