Why?

In this day and age, most professions require human interaction, and let's face it, we all need to polish our people skills every once in a while. Improv @ Work strengthens those human skills we need in order to have engaging and productive interactions in the workplace.

Improv @ Work takes the basic principles of improv comedy and translates them into a fun and engaging way for professionals to be trained in the art of human interaction – a skill that can be the most difficult to achieve.

Unlike “hard skills”, which are taught and mastered over time, “soft skills” (referred to here as “human skills”) are inherent and harder to learn. At the end of each Improv @ Work session, participants are empowered with a toolkit, allowing them to continue to activate those inherent human skills.

WHY

WHAT

IMPROV @ WORK

What is?

A two-hour workshop aimed to enhance an individual’s ability to work collaboratively and engage in meaningful professional communication by participating in hands on activities and exercises. Through this workshop, you and/or your employees will get:

Techniques to encourage better collaboration and teamwork
Team bonding and laughter unlike any other
Enhanced active listening skills
A sense of accomplishment for stepping outside of your comfort zone in a safe and supportive environment
An eagerness to practice more improv
Something to tell your family about

WHO

Who should take?

Improv @ Work is for everyone - from Admins and Project Managers, to Developers and Finance teams, and everyone in between. This workshop was created for any professional who works in a collaborative, interpersonal or team based environment. Examples of the types of groups that take this workshop are:

Cross functional teams looking to build collaboration skills
Individual departments or discipline teams looking to build team trust
Leadership or management teams looking to build human skills for handling direct report or customer relationships
Entire offices looking to grow together and build a positive & fun culture
Teams looking to work on public speaking or group speaking skills
Teams looking to step (slightly) outside of their comfort zone
Teams looking for something extremely fun to do!

IMPROV @ WORK

Who is?

GARY GOLDSMITH is a NYC-based comedian, Improv coach, program management lead, and father. Gary received his Improv training from the Upright Citizens Brigade theater in New York City. He performed, wrote and produced Improv and sketch comedy with his comedy team, MARTHA, from 2010 – 2017, and continues to produce comedy shows in the NYC area. While not Producing shows and teaching Improv to professionals, Gary works as a Design Program Manager at Facebook – building team trust & partnering with Design teams to strengthen collaboration across the Facebook community. Gary regularly runs the Improv @ Work workshops with his Facebook teams and is excited to offer it to the rest of the world!

ALI LEVIN is an NYC- based comedian, Improv educator, actor, writer, vocalist, and producer who is dedicated to creating interactive comedy that generates empathy and connection. Ali has been performing and teaching improv, to adults and children, for over 10 years. She received her improv training from the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, The Peoples Improv Theatre, Chicago City Limits, and Reckless Theatre.

She is a regular contributing comedian and impressionist on Sirius XM with John Fuglesang. Ali's musical comedy variety shows continue to be rated "Critic's Pick" by Time Out New York. Her comedy and original characters have also been featured in Refinery 29, FunnyOrDie and The New York Times. As a producer, Ali's work has been featured on Discovery Channel, National Geographic, and BillMoyers.com. Currently, Ali specializes in character-based improv with children and adults throughout NYC.

JEREMY PARKER is an actor, comedian and musician. Jeremy has appeared at the Gotham Comedy Club, Joe’s Pub and MoMA PS1 He took his stand-up global by appearing in Hong Kong, Seoul, South Korea and a small hut in La Union, San Juan Philippines. Jeremy has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Bullett Magazine, MSNBC, NPR, WBAI, and WJFK. Jeremy studied improv with Second City director, Paul Sills at his farm in rural Wisconsin and Upright Citizen's Brigade in New York City.

Jeremy was a founding member of the improv and sketch comedy team MARTHA and co wrote and directed the sketch comedy show Cease and Desist. Jeremy can be seen in a number of commercial and film projects. His stand up can also be heard on regular rotation on Foxxhole Sirius Radio.

CLIENTS