There are a lot of fascinating people in my acting class. Christine Decker, our teacher, is a wonderful actor,  and an intuitive teacher, and I’ve already met a professor, a pastor, a bunch of young actors and a fascinating and creative young man named Holden.

Holden is 22, he works in Massachusetts as a general contractor, but that is his day job, his passion in life is Live Acting Role Playing, (LARP) one of the most creative  and challenging and little known subcultures in the digital world, and in all of  culture.

Live Acting Role Playing is a form of real world and online role-playing – inspired, I think, by the Dungeons and Dragons games – where the participants physically portray their characters. The players pursue different goals – hunting, finding, “killing” playing. The setting takes place in the real world, the players interact with one another in character.

It is really all about acting, creating and drama.

There is a farm outside of my town of Cambridge – I’ve never been there – where role players gather four or five times a year to act out their different scenarios. Holden role plays there.

There are many variations to role-playing. The rules vary also.

The outcome of the player roles and actions are often mediated by game rules or determined by voting or consensus among the players. The event hosts and arrangers are called gamemasters, they choose the setting and the rules to be used to manage play.

The first LARP’s were run in the late 1970’s, during the rise of tabletop games and genre fiction, online and off. Dungeons and Dragons was the mother of these and other offshoots of gaming. The play might be a simple game or a complex dramatic or artistic play or other expression of creativity.

The gamers live in an alternate universe sometimes – few outsiders know what they are doing, how complex and creative and obsessive and stimulating it is. They truly live in another world, colorful, intense and expanding. Few parents or educators or politicians can even begin to grasp it’s complexity and reach.

This is where Holden came in, he say she took the class to enhance his acting skills for his LARP work, but he seems to be a natural actor, comfortable before a crowd and authentic. I’ve always seen the gaming culture as one of the most compelling and creative cultures in the country, even though it is still a subterranean culture, not recognized by mainstream media or the cultural trendsetters of the coasts and media.

It was great to talk to Holden last night, and good for him. He is serious about nurturing and expanding his creativity.

His games are not far from the farm, I hope we can get him to visit or invite me to one. I will enjoy watching him grow in class.