Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre Corporate Workshops
The Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre is home to the best improv comedy in the world. Actors from our theatres in New York City and Los Angeles are among today's greatest comedians with credits like Saturday Night Live, the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, Arrested Development, Curb Your Enthusiasm and many more. Fueling this success is the UCB improv training which is built on a foundation of "Yes, And...". This philosophy is the starting point of good comedy and successful work. "Yes, And..." enables improvisers to create hilarious and compelling scenes spontaneously on stage and it is also easily applicable and surprisingly relevant to the workplace.
How will an improv workshop help your company?
UCB improv workshops focus on introducing participants to a culture of agreement through improv. We teach that you can take any idea, no matter how simple, and turn it into brilliance. By agreeing - as a group - to look not for what is wrong but what is right, team members learn to accept given information and add to it. This process results in unique group ideas that no participant could individually produce. In our workshops, we use fun exercises to plant seeds that then flower when participants return to the workplace. Through exercises, we introduce a fresh approach to teamwork, brainstorming, problem solving, team building, trust and agreement. Participants leave our workshops with a new perspective and new tools to empower all communicating - with clients, in meetings, in presentations and with each other.
What happens in the workshop?
Our workshops typically last three hours but can easily be tailored to fit your schedule and needs. We start by getting everybody comfortable with the idea of actually doing improvisation by doing a series of improv games designed to warm up, create focus, and get the energy up. We then start working on agreement, applying "Yes And" to situations and demonstrating it's power. Normal exercises include mock one on one interviews, done in the style of a TV, radio, or job interviews. We then get more involved with panel discussion groups, making these groups experts on a made up subject. Once the idea Of "Yes And" is incorporated, we move on to performance level games such as Ad Game, Game Show, or Slide Show. These games allow the group to apply and reinforce the ideas they've learned throughout the day while playing and having fun. We wrap up our workshops with a brief review of the concepts and their application and a Q&A session.