Improv Interviews

Listen to Brie Watson, Candace Meeks and Alicia Douglas of the Fantastic Funny Femmes describe their powerful work on-stage and in the classroom. These ladies are definitely making a difference and using improv as a healing art.

Pam Victor describes her life in improv, founding the improv group The Ha-Ha's and how she co-authored "Improvisation at the Speed of Light" with TJ Jagodowski and David Pasquesi. Pam keeps busy teaching and performing at Happier Valley at the Northampton Center for the Art in Northampton, Mass.

Join us for a delightful talk with a woman who has brought improv to so many people.She is the author of the award-winning book,IMPROV WISDOM: Don’t Prepare, Just Show Up (Bell Tower, 2005).

She shares how she discovered improv through her passion for Tai Chi, which led her to studying with Keith Johnstone. She is a professor Emerita from Stanford University where she began teaching in 1977. In the Drama Department she served as the head of the undergraduate acting division and developed the improvisation program. She founded and coached the Stanford Improvisors and taught beginning and advanced level courses in improvisation for undergraduate as well as adults in Stanford's Continuing Studies Program.

In 1998 she won the Lloyd W. Dinkelspiel Award for Outstanding Innovation in Undergraduate Education. In 1996 she founded the Creativity Initiative at Stanford, an interdisciplinary alliance of faculty who share the belief that creativity can be taught. She taught the Design Improv for the School of Engineering and has been a guest lecturer for the Stanford Technology Ventures Program and for the Mayfield Fellows Program.

She is truly a pioneer in the applied improvisational field.

Kat Koppett is the CEO & President of Koppett a coaching and consulting company specializing in the use of theatre and storytelling techniques to enhance individual and organizational performance.

Her book on how to use improvisational theatre techniques for organizational development, Training to Imagine: Practical Improvisational Theatre Techniques to Enhance Creativity, Teamwork, Leadership and Learning, is considered a seminal work in the field of Applied Improv, and is used in organizations around the world. She holds a BFA in Drama from New York University and an MA in Organizational Psychology from Columbia University.

Kat has designed and delivered training such diverse clients as Apple, Facebook, Prezi, the Clinton Global Initiative, Chanel, GE, Ellis, St. Peters Hospital, JPMorgan Chase, Eli Lilly, Skidmore and Havas Health.

She has spoken twice at TEDx conferences, and has lectured at UC Berkeley, Stanford University, RPI and Skidmore.

She is on the board of Northeast Ballet and the Consulting Alliance.

Kat is a founding member of the Applied Improvisation Network and a member of co-owner of the Mopco Improv Theatre, the Capital Region’s premiere improvisational theatre company producing shows and classes daily on N. Jay St. (www.mopco.org)

TheatreWeek Magazine named Kat one of the year’s “Unsung Heroes” for her creation of the completely improvised musical format, “Spontaneous Broadway”.

www.koppett.com

I had the good fortune to meet and study with Joe Bill and I was truly blown away by his brilliance as an improv teacher and human being. For more about Joe Bill visit his Facebook pages: https://www.facebook.com/joe.bill and https://www.facebook.com/BASSPROV/. You can follow him on Twitter @mrjoebill. Recorded 7/27/17.

Dr. Wiener discusses his work combining improvisational theatre games in psychotherapy. His book, "Rehearsals for Growth", 1994, is a groundbreaking work on how improv games can be utilized effectively in counseling.

Sam is truly a Renaissance man (although he insists the Renaissance is over!) and he loves improvisational theatre, film editing and directing and so much more. Sam is a incredible artist and a genuine, generous soul!.

Improv Interviews - Margot Escott

Bernie De Koven, the master of play, shares his experience in the art and therapy of play! Bernie brings joy and love wherever he goes and is known as the "Shaman of Play," Bernie a leading fun theorist who has shown over the course of his 45 year career how fun and playfulness lead to some of the most important trends in games today, from large scale community games to casual game apps. He is the author of The Well-Played Game (originally published by Doubleday in 1978 and reissued in 2013 by MIT Press), A Playful Path (over 640,000 downloads), and a CD Recess for the Soul. He continues to make his work publicly available through his seminars and websites: http://www.deepfun.com and A Playful Pathhttp://www.aplayfulpath.com/

Assael Romanelli, MSW is an improviser/therapist who recently published his PhD research study on training therapists in improvisation skills.

Listen to how Assael’s path in improvisation theatre, psychotherapy and education led him to this groundbreaking research. Hear about the ways in which these disciplines come together to create a new, synergistic training which can help generate healing and growth processes for the individual and relationship.

“Theater improvisation skills increase spontaneity, animation and co-creation with the other, as well as enhance immediacy skills. This pilot study examines the effects of theater improvisation skills training on therapists’ perceptions of therapy and their subsequent clinical interventions.”

You can reach Assael at:

[email protected]

www.potentialstate.com