The Best Improv Classes In Minneapolis

Between you and me, Minneapolis is one of my favorite cities in the country and it always been a friendly environment for my improv training business, going back as far as 2009 when I first scheduled a large number of events for various University of Minnesota campuses.

I love the unique culture and can do spirit of the people in Minneapolis, both of which lend themselves naturally to the lessons of improv, For all the reasons and more, I was excited to return to Minneapolis in late 2024 to work with a new client with an unusual request. The vast majority of clients I work with are looking for a fun experience for their workplace team that also addresses the development of an important skill set (or two) for their office. But this particular Minneapolis based financial firm had a different idea.

In our first discovery call they explained that they wanted to learn more about their clients financial dreams. Once they knew a clients' financial goals they found it much easier to build a financial plan that would get them there. Makes sense, but they were finding it difficult to get their clients to be forthcoming.

The financial firm wondered if the problem wasn't a lack of vision or creativity among their client base. I had a different suspicion, but I agreed to visit their offices for a client event to lead a creativity workshop.

Once the workshop started (in an absolutely stunning office space) it quickly became evident that this firm's clients were deeply creative and secretly harbored many ornate ideas about their upcoming retirement. Using improv exercises and infusing the event with the supportive spirit of improv ensembles we were quickly able to identify one outlandish retirement dream after the next. Not only did attendees leave with a clearer idea of where they wanted to go, but also with big smiles on their faces!

Improv has taught me that the difference between what we call a "creative" person vs an "uncreative" person is not the number or quality of their ideas. I strongly believe that the least "creative" person has roughly the same number of thoughts as the most "creative" person and that the relative quality of these ideas boils down to a matter of opinion. The real difference between the two categories is that "creative" people are comfortable sharing their ideas, while uncreative people are more tightlipped.

That means that in order to teach creativity what you really need to do is develop self confidence. If you can convince "uncreative" people that their ideas are valuable and that you want to hear them, you will be amazed at how creative they suddenly become.

For my Minneapolis based client I developed a curriculum that focused on building confidence and sharing ideas. We played games like "Seven Things" and "Badada" and "Made Up Story" hotspot to loosen them up and then graduated to more advanced exercises that really etched out their hopes and dreams.

If you want to know more, don't be shy! I'd love to build a similar curriculum for you!