About Kat Koppett
Kat is the Eponymous Founder of Koppett & Company a consulting, training and coaching business specializing in the use of theatre and storytelling techniques to enhance peformance on the job. She holds a B.F.A. in Drama from New York University and an M.A. in Organizational Psychology from Columbia University, and continually seeks to combine the wisdom and strengths of both disciplines to create programs that are both practical and transformative. Her book Training to Imagine: Practical Improvisational Theatre Techniques to Enhance Creativity, Teamwork, Leadership, and Learning, is considered a seminal work in the field of Applied Improv and is used by professionals around the world.
Kat has designed and delivered programs for such diverse clients as Apple, Chanel, Prezi, Kaiser-Permanente, GE, St. Peters Hospital, JPMorgan Chase, Eli Lilly, and The Farm Bureau in places such as India, Brazil, Paris, Budapest and Oklahoma. An adjunct professor at RPI’s Lally School of Business, Kat has presented at Stanford, UC Berkeley as well as ASTD, ISPI, NSA, the YPA, NASAGA, AIN and many other organizations with initials. She has given two TEDx talks on the use of improv to enhance non-theatrical performance.
Kat performs with and is a Co-Director of The Mop & Bucket Theatre Company the Capital Region’s premiere improvisational theatre company. In 1995, TheatreWeek Magazine named Kat one of the year’s “Unsung Heroes” for her creation of the completely improvised musical format, “Spontaneous Broadway” now performed by companies from New York to California to Australia. Her most fulfilling improv gig to date is playing Mama to her daughter, Lia.
For more info go to: www.koppett.com
GUEST BLOGGER: Kat Koppett At the Applied Improvisation Network’s 2011 annual conference in Baltimore, a bunch of us got together to explore the nuts and bolts of choosing, running and debriefing improv activities in organizational settings. “We want a Top -10 Tips list,” one of the participants commented. Perhaps I should already have had such a thing, nicely designed and laminated, but I didn’t. Still, an offer is an offer, and we’re all improvisers, so we made one up as we went. Here it is with a few embellishments based on conversations and musings since. Much of it comes down to practicing what you preach when you are teaching applied improv, and therefore link back to principles discussed here previously. What resonates for you? What did we miss? We look forward to you comments and input. Then we promise to laminate. Know your objective. Improv is no… …
