Creative Strategy: Reconnecting Business and Innovation

THE ROYAL SHAKESPEARE COMPANYACT I: THE INNOVATIVE ACT

Where do new ideas come from? In November 2006, we observed the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) rehearsing a new production of Richard III under the direction of Michael Boyd, the company's Artistic Director. The play formed part of Boyd's ambitious plan to stage eight of Shakespeare's history plays, working with the same ensemble of actors over two and a half years.

Based on our observations, the idea generation process in rehearsals follows two dynamics. First of all innovation operates through the discovery of ideas and meaning in the text, but new meanings are also actively created by the actors improvising and experimenting. Secondly, individual moments of discovery and creation are embedded in a collective consensus. These two sets of dynamics feed off each other.

Creation in rehearsal occurs when an individual tries a new way of delivering a line, or a scene suddenly ‘clicks’ to reveal a new meaning or a new relationship. On one occasion, the actor playing Richard picked up a handful of strawberries he was eating and hurled them at the actor playing Hastings. The effect was vivid and unexpected, exploding the tensions within the court and Richard's underlying threat of violence. Most creative artists will have experienced these moments of breakthrough thinking. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describes a ‘flow’ state where performers find themselves operating at a pitch of unfettered and heightened creativity. Athletes will ...