My name is Brett Williams, and I have been with the troupe since 2003.  Things have changed over the years, and I am really glad to say things are moving in the right direction.  We have now been at the Chanhassen Dinner Theatres since 2010—over five years.  When we first started things were fresh and new for me: sketches, scripted songs, and group scripted structures.  

We went away from that for a while, but I’m glad we are back to that format.  It allows us as a group to work together to collaborate on things we have all put our blood, sweat, and tears into.  My favorite is coming up with a way to show the audience through song what holidays and seasons mean to us by providing satire and funny situations.  With music provided by William Pierce, Grant Dawson, and Carl Olson anything is possible and we set out to prove that.  Whether it is be a Valentine’s Day song, a song to “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” or a Father’s Day song sung with twists, the challenge is to keep creating to where it is fun for the performances and the audience.  

I have been performing improv for fifteen years now, and I am always up for new things.  The audience never knows what to expect and I think we have meet their expectations with sketches. Two Minnesota women making crafts with stuff bought at Cub or a GPS system that has a mind of its own.  Each month brings more challenges and it has helped all of us grow!  I do also like that each month there is a different troupe member hosting the show giving their own flair and creations to the show.  

If you haven’t seen a show in a while, come on out and see what you’ve been missing.  Crazy characters, crazy songs, and creative sketches with unique and wonderful characters.  It’s always a family-friendly show, so all are welcome.  

Come check us out.

2015 will be our best year yet.

A highly decorated general stood in line at he gates of heaven.  Curious, he asked Saint Peter who the guy was that walked through just ahead of him.  Saint Peter said, "That's Bradley, the greatest king who ever lived."  The general replied, "I thought he said he'd worked in a call center his whole life."  "That's true," said Saint Peter, "he just never discovered what a great leader he was."

I was voted 'Class Actor' in our graduating high school class' yearbook -- I was in a lot of plays back then.  In 1996 I'd been out of high school for 11 years and hadn't been in one theatrical production.  I was always going to get involved next year.

I'd been living my life with a job in corporate America and had recently been promoted from a cubical to having my own office.  I ran across a listing for improv classes in the back of the City Pages--the local happenings publication, so I called to get information about signing up.  The guy who answered said that he was up on a ladder painting, so he took down my address so he could send me a post card about the classes (if you've ever met Stevie Ray, that's completely normal).  Two years later, I was cleaning off my desk at home and found the post card. No more procrastinating -- I signed up.

By 2004 I had, among may other things: performed in a professional improv troupe, toured the Midwest as a stand-up comedian, started two corporations and traveled internationally as a public speaker.  I am now an improv instructor at Stevie Ray's.

Of the hundreds of students I've met in my improv classes over the years, less than a handful want to be performers, actors or comedians.  Most of them are business people, artists or moms--regular people.  They sign up because they want to learn to speak better in meetings at work or to be more social at parties or how to be funnier.  These are things they think they want to get out of the classes.

What keeps them coming back is the people they meet, the safety of the improv class to be vulnerable and the confidence they gain.

What I get excited about are the transformations I get to witness as people discover who, what, and where they really are in life.  My favorite was the secretary who gained the confidence to get onto the sales team.  On second thought, it might be the self-conscious tall woman who walked with her shoulders hunched forward her entire life out of insecurity, but then each week walked out of class a little taller.  Maybe, it was the overweight guy who sat with me after a couple months of classes and cried when he told me that he wasn't afraid anymore.

I get a roster of names each time a new class starts.  I really don't care about names.  I get excited about who will discover that they are the greatest living king.

Improvisers are a strange breed of people, and they’d be the first to admit it. They find pleasure in the unexpected. They get excited by surprise. They are positively thrilled when something happens in a way no one saw coming. Great improvisers work very hard to prepare their minds to handle these moments calmly. They have exercises they repeat, rules they master, and skills they hone in solitary practice and live on stage in front of a crowd. People often ask improvisers, “How do you come up with that stuff so fast?” There is no secret: they work very hard at it, because they are addicted to it.

There is a downside to this addiction, though. Improvisers crave change, and without it they become less inspired performers. If an improvisational troupe spends one hundred nights a year playing shows in the same theater, to audiences made up of similar types of people, the quality of the work will suffer. True improvisation requires some measure of chaos, and chaos is rarely found in the comfortable confines of a cozy theatre.

Hold that thought.

Somewhere, long ago, in the dark fuzzy history of improvisational comedy, someone came up with the very practical idea of offering improv comedy as corporate entertainment. The basics were simple: charge a fee, pack up the lights, sound equipment and actors, show up an hour early to the company’s event, and see what happened. Over time, (and Stevie Ray himself is a big part of this evolution) corporate entertainment has become a serious component to the health of improv troupes around the country. It is, for many troupes, the business part of show business. They make money doing corporate work, which provides them the opportunity to continue doing their theater work. Improvisers are now regularly used to assist in sales training, help launch new products and provide themed entertainment for workshops or retreats. The work involves research, and planning with the event organizers. As a business practice, it’s a terrific asset.

But there’s another benefit. One that brings us back to my earlier thesis: Corporate entertaining provides the chaos needed for actors to thrive. Unfamiliar surroundings, the possibility of a broken microphone, a skeptical audience on their home turf – all provide the surprises that improvisers crave. Doing corporate entertainment sharpens their skills, so their theater work becomes more potent.

It boils down to this: It is easy to perform when the circumstances are perfect. It is harder to be excellent when the deck is stacked against you. Improvisers are indeed a strange breed: they want their backs to the wall, they’d prefer to play with fire, and they just can’t wait for something they have never seen before. Thank God for corporate work.

We find ourselves in groups all of the time.  For the most part we are happier in groups than we are alone.  At the same time, we all have natural instincts to protect ourselves and to distrust others.   These instincts serve important purposes, but they pose challenges when we’re in groups. 

Whether the group I’m working with is a work team, a professional association or a summer youth program, I find resistance.  Good old resistance; it’s as human as the opposable thumb.  I’m not there to challenge this resistance, this would only create more resistance.  I’m there to get people to say ‘yes’ to something, to fully engage with their group, to see what it feels like to immerse themselves in the group they are a part of.

We start small and we have fun.  Improv games are fun and they’re not hard to figure out.  Improv requires nothing more than a wholehearted ‘yes’.  In very little time, the group is fully engaged.  They come to realize that the only mistake you can make in an improv game is to stop playing.   There is no time for defensiveness, embarrassment or skepticism during an improv game, there is only what is happening right now.

This kind of full engagement is elusive.  In a meeting, you have someone checking their email under the table, someone else thinking about errands he has to run after work, and someone else planning what she’s going to say when she gets her turn.  Improv doesn’t solve all of these problems, what it provides is an example of what it’s like when everyone is focused on the present moment.  It turns out to be a truly positive experience.

It’s a pleasure to conduct workshops for Stevie Ray’s.   People are always amazed at how much they learn and how much fun they have learning it, and I’m there to see it all happen.