Improv Workshop

by Shawn Westfall

Goal: A fun and highly interactive session of improvisational comedy that will foster creativity and team cohesion while providing participants with greater confidence in front of audiences and clients.

Description: What is improvisational comedy? It's a collaborative series of comedic games and scenes entirely "made up" on the spot. You've probably seen improv comedy on television: the TV show "Whose Line Is It, Anyway?" popularized improv comedy in both Britain and America. The group will learn the basics of improv through exercises and games that demonstrate the principles behind this fun and exciting art form. And not only is improv fun, but the principles of improv can be simultaneously applied to a number of everyday business challenges, challenges such as: 

  • Speaking “off the cuff” in public situations
  • Gaining greater confidence in front of presentation/pitch audiences
  • Egos running amok
  • Creative juices running dry…
  • A lack of energy and fun at the workplace
  • An organization that’s enervated and “spinning its wheels”
  • Consistently negative criticism
  • Diverging agendas
  • Lack of teamwork or collegiality
  • “Paralysis Analysis”
  • Some Ideas Are More Important Than Others
  • “No one listens to me…”

Improv provides solutions to these challenges by:

  • Teaching “in the moment” and “transparent” behavior in front of audiences
  • Promoting teamwork and collaboration
  • Promoting a greater sense of trust among colleagues
  • Providing improved communication and presentation skills
  • Teaching “in-the-moment” thinking
  • Flexing your creative muscles…
  • And – most importantly – having FUN

What Others Are Saying

Says The Washington Post in “Toss Them A Line; Pros Make Improv Look Easy, but Novices Are Ad-Libbing Dangerously,” March 16, 2004. “Improvisational comedy is ridiculous, profound and humbling all at the same time… What you learn in improv spills over into the rest of your day-to-day experience.”
                                                  
Is improv good for getting people to loosen up in front of audiences? Legal Times thinks so. “To some it might seem [Shawn Westfall is] attempting the impossible: teaching a group of professionals trained to be risk averse to take the plunge into spontaneity in front of an audience looking for laughs. As improbable as it sounds, the effort seems to be working” (“Lawyer Walks Into a Comedy Club: But can Shawn Westfall teach legal types how to get laughs?” – Legal Times, Sept. 24, 2007).
 
And most recently The New York Times focused a story how improvisational comedy can create more cohesive workplaces and foment instant creativity: “ [T]he openness and playfulness that characterize improvisational acting can create a sense of cooperation and affirmation that is foreign to highly competitive workplaces. When one worker actively shoots down another’s ideas to help his or her own ideas win, nascent notions that could develop into something brilliant die on the vine” (“Can Executives Learn to Ignore the Script?” The New York Times, March 2, 2008)
 

Your Instructor

The exclusive teacher of improvisational comedy at the DC Improv for more than six years, Shawn Westfall teaches classes in beginning improv, advanced short-form and long-form improv, as well as improv workshops focusing on character, long form, and non-traditional improv techniques. His classes (and the numerous performances they’ve generated) have been featured in the pages of The Washington Post, The Washington Post Express, Washingtonian magazine, as well on Washington Post Radio, DC 101, WTOP Radio, MIX 107.3 and most recently on The Food Network’s “Dinner: Impossible!”

Not only has Shawn taught the principles of improv to individual students, he’s also taught improv as a strategy for fomenting creativity, teambuilding and organizational development to various private, public and non-governmental organizations, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Discovery Channel, B’nai Brith Youth Organization, Touchstone Consulting, Booz Allen Hamilton, and The Washington Post Company. 

Shawn has performed improvisational comedy for over 15 years with a number of professional improv troupes, including Loose Screws in Honolulu, Hawaii and The Oxymorons, a nationally recognized improv troupe in San Antonio. A former member of both DC ComedySportz and DCUPS (DC Unscripted Players), Shawn founded a sketch comedy troupe, Pretentious Actors Collective (P.A.C.), which played to audiences in Northern Virginia and Washington, DC. Most recently, he was the founder and creative director of bright young things, an improv troupe specializing in long-form improv that played to audiences in Washington, DC (headlining at the DC Improv) and New York City, playing at the prestigious Upright Citizens Brigade Comedy Theater. Shawn has also performed stand-up comedy in Texas and throughout the Washington, DC area, and has opened for comedian Adam Ferrara at the DC Improv.

In addition, Shawn is also an advertising creative: he’s a senior copywriter for Proof Integrated Communications (www.proofic.com), a division of Burson-Marsteller. He’s also a freelance writer whose work has been published in newspapers, literary journals and magazines in Utah, Texas and Hawaii.

For information about his the classes he teaches at the DC Improv, visit www.dcimprov.com/school_shawn.html

For more information about bringing improv to your next party or event, or work or business-related offsite, visit www.improvdelivered.com.