You know how sometimes you’ll see a play or a movie, and one actor’s performance stands out, and not in a good way? Afterwards you might say, “She seemed like she was in a different play than everyone else.”
What’s going on when that happens?
When one actor isn’t meshing with the production, they don’t have the same goal as the rest of the ensemble. Ideally, every person working on the play shares a vision of how the story unfolds, what moments are important, and how the audience will experience this creation. When this happens, the play feels inevitable yet surprising—all of a perfect piece. Each actor is contributing the exact right thing at the right time, no more and no less.
When this balance is off, we might notice an actor’s choices as being too big or emotional. Or they may barely show up, seeming to fade into the background.
Sometimes it’s not an actor who’s out of sync with the production. It could be one of the designers: maybe a set that isn’t practical, sound that’s intrusive, or costumes that make the audience wonder why they were chosen. In every case, someone on the creative team didn’t get on board with the story everyone else was telling, and it shows.
Why does this matter?
In every workplace, there should be at least one leader whose job is to see when someone isn’t bought into the vision: a person who can step in when they see the signs that the team is fractured, that everyone isn’t pulling together. In the theatre, that person is the director. If a scene isn’t working, if actors are unhappy, if the play is weirdly boring or flabby, the director knows it’s time to refocus and redefine the task at hand. The outcome—the audience’s experience–will suffer if she doesn’t do this.
The signs that “someone is in a different play” at your workplace may be different, but the stakes are similarly high. What does it look and feel like when everyone is in sync? What tells you that something might be off? How might you get everyone on board again?
