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Portland Center Stage’s Art of Business courses use improvisation exercises and performance techniques to improve presentation, communication, leadership skills and more. Learn how to use tried-and-true theater techniques to enhance your performance in the workplace. Every term PCS offers a new series of Art of Business courses for the business professional.
Here’s what people are saying!
“I just wanted to say that this course has been priceless for me”
“It’s all I hoped for and more and I can’t wait till next Monday! I’m so glad PCS is offering these classes for us non-actor types.”
“I find with improv classes that I always want more—I learn so much from just putting myself in positions I don’t normally opt for.”
Fall 2009 Courses
For a detailed description and instructor bio, click on the class title.
The Art of Presentations
Instructor: Laura Faye Smith
Course dates: Mondays, Oct. 5—Oct. 26, from 7pm to 9pm
Tuition: $150
Please read on for detailed descriptions of current and future Art of Business courses
The Art of Communication
The Art of Communication segment utilizes improvisation exercises and performance techniques to help you switch off your automatic pilot and be fully in the moment by shifting status, adjusting body language and heightening your listening skills. Learn how to adjust on the spot to captivate your audience and to be a malleable and effective communicator. Classes include;
Switching off Your Automatic Pilot
Being in the moment, even during routine dialogues, is the key to being an engaging conversationalist. Do you notice your attention wandering in the middle of a sentence — or worse yet, a conversation? We’ll go through exercises and techniques to wake you up and re-engage, even when it all seems oh-so-familiar.
Listening Is Responding
Gaining acute listening skills means everything when aiming to improve brainstorming skills, meeting dialogue and speech-giving. Listening abilities improve drastically when your powers of observation and relaxation are combined with the ability to hear and respond directly to what others are saying.
How Do People View You When You Speak?
How do others perceive you? What does your body language say to people? How sure are you of how you’re coming across? Do you walk into a room with high status (everyone turns and looks) or low status (you enter unnoticed)? Do people immediately want to engage with you, or do they feel intimidated? Whether you’re speaking to one person, a small group or a packed auditorium, you must learn how to adjust in the moment to fully engage your audience and to communicate effectively.
Instructor: Barb Klansnic is a founding member of the sketch/improv group Inflatable Betty, Los Angeles and Eastland Academy, Portland; voice over/writer for Planet’s Funniest Animals (Animal Planet Network); ensemble member of Unexpected Productions, Seattle; performer/writer for Almost Live! and NPR’s Rewind with Bill Radke, and improv instructor and director in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and Portland for people of all ages, attitudes, sizes and corporate affiliations. She is a freelance scriptwriter for corporations, small companies and Internet ventures.
The Art of Conflict
The Art of Conflict segment uses improvisation exercises and performance techniques to teach how to respond with spontaneous skill to difficult situations. The course will provide practical experience in easing conflict to improve work relationships and personal clarity. Classes include;
Yes and No
Some days, life feels full of unsaid yeses and no’s: more work/life balance, the request that means working through the weekend, a commitment to your kids. Why are some of these so hard? What gets in the way, really? With light-hearted simplicity (and riotous laughter at times), the improv working method gives us new tools and language for voicing the yes’ and no’s we really care about.
Why can’t I get through to them?
You’ve had the conversation, maybe more than once. You think you’ve been clear, but nothing has changed. You could read one of those big, thick, serious books about communication, or… hang out and play with improv-based methods that give new perspective and turbo-charged tools for how to deal with it when different perspectives collide. That’s where all the great ideas come from on stage, after all.
Stepping into the void… of a difficult conversation
What do I say? How do I say it? What should I do when a challenging conversation goes “off script,” and why does it all seem so challenging, anyway? In this class, we’ll do serious work without taking ourselves seriously. Working from an improv perspective, gain new strategies and on-your-feet practice to unpack the dynamics of difficult conversations and learn how to step into them with new confidence, awareness and skill.
Instructor: Julie Huffaker is a partner in boutique business consultancy On Your Feet. On Your Feet is a collision between business and the arts, and uses highly experiential techniques – including improvisation – to help companies like Nike, Intel, GE and Disney with communication, creativity and change. Julie is a cultural anthropologist with an MBA, and focuses on the place where business and the human journey come together: namely, the relationship between strategic business evolution and leadership and group transformation. Key areas of interest include leading change; productive conflict; vision, values and alignment work; and leadership development. Julie is an avid traveler, a humble yoga practitioner and a novice bike commuter.
The Art of Presentations
The Art of Presentations course will utilize performance exercises and techniques to help you focus on creating confident and engaging presentations. Move your audience from captive to captivated by helping them understand quickly and clearly why they should listen to you. Learn how to keep the flow of energy between you and your audience by keeping the audience actively involved while finding your own confident presenting style. Classes include;
Engaging your audience
To captivate your audience, you must help them understand quickly and clearly why they should listen to you. This class will focus on “seeing” the audience, showing them the value of your presentation, determining the hidden needs/agendas of an audience, and how to acknowledge and handle those needs.
Keeping your presentation “alive”
As audience members, we’ve all endured the torment of the monotonous presenter, and as presenters, we’ve feared we were that dreaded droner. In this session, we’ll focus on keeping a flow of energy between you and your audience, building in a variety of activities to keep the audience actively involved, and finding your own comfortable and confident presenting style.
Meeting your monsters
It’s fine to take a class on being a great presenter, but what happens when all those…people are out there? What about the person in the front row, asking the questions you can’t answer? What about that person in the back, clicking away on the Blackberry? And what about the boss who keeps interrupting to correct you? In this final class of the presentation section, you’ll get to cast your own audience of “monster behavior,” and learn hands-on survival skills to stay calm and unflappable even in a nightmarish situation.
Instructor: Laura Faye Smith is a Drammy and OTAS award-winning actress who has worked professionally for several Portland theaters and has toured nationally and internationally. She has taught classes in numerous disciplines, such as improvisation, auditioning, voice over, and sketch comedy/stand up comedy. She has also worked extensively with On Your Feet, a collaboration that uses the techniques and skills of improvisation to help clients with business issues. In addition to her theatrical career, Laura has also served in many different roles in the business world, and is currently the Educational Theatre Program Manager for Oregon Children’s Theatre. She has a BA in English and Theater from Oregon State University.
The Art of the Interview
This 4 hour workshop will utilize performance exercises and audition skills to help you focus on “getting the part” of your dream job. Try a creative approach to preparing for your next job interview – much in the way an actor prepares to audition for a part in a play. Learn how to help future employers “see you in the role” you’re seeking, by doing your research, focusing on active listening, asking impactful questions, and creating a dynamic rapport during the interview process. You’ll walk away with skills that will help you stay calm, genuine, and present during your next interview. Workshop includes a Q & A session with Barbara Baker from Umpua Bank has been nationally recognized as one of the top HR Directors in the country.
Instructor: Laura Faye Smith – see bio above
The Art of Innovation
An introduction to non-discussion based ideation techniques that help participants find new ways to begin conversations, find solutions and innovate with others. We use methodologies from improvisation that include being “unserious”, using constraints, and asking different questions. Using a combination of games and facilitated discussions, participants will emerge with new ideas on real issues, as well as an understanding of how to use these new techniques in the future. On Your Feet has used these concepts with real clients including GE, Nike, Proctor and Gamble, and multiple advertising agencies.
Being Unserious:
Often the best ideas come from playing with the things you take seriously. In this class we will explore these generative techniques, drawing from the world of improvisation, and other playful ”disciplines.”
Asking Different Questions:
Ideation is about finding answers. But often the best recipe for success can be asking the right question in the first place/ In this lass we explore the art of ‘question making” and how it applies to idea generation.
Using Constraints:
In the class we put up road blocks…deliberately. A little structure can go along way when it comes to generating new ideas. There is an art to using constraints to your advantage. In this class we will play with constraints and use them to get richer ideas.
Instructors:Gary Hirsch, Brad Robertson, Shelley Six and others from On Your Feet.
OYF is a collaboration between business and improvisation; our effectiveness and facilitation teams are based on this fusion. Their organization includes MBAs, marketing and branding professionals, a cultural anthropologist, visual artists, improvisers, filmmakers, and others. We deliver core learning experiences to increase the power of communication, ideation and change; design custom facilitated workshops and retreats; and help with longer strategic initiatives in the areas of strategy, vision/values, branding and change… All while having a ridiculously good time. OYF clients include: Intel, Nike, GE, Disney, P&G, The BBC, Razorfish, JWT, Wieden + Kennedy, T-Mobile, Dreamworks, Laika, and Warner Bros.
Gary is a rabid illustrator, artist, college faculty, and co-founder of On Your Feet. He has designed and led programs for Nike, FedEx, Disney, Warner Bros, Intel and others. Gary has been teaching and performing professional improv for fifteen years. He is the founder of Super Project Lab Improv, and has performed with members of the cast of the ABC hit television series “Whose Line Is It Anyway?”. Before joining OYF in 1999, Brad was first the snow cone king of Portland (really, it’s true) and then the Director of the Business Outreach Program at Portland State University, where he taught courses in Small Business Consulting, Organizational Behavior, Improv and Business, and Dialogue. Shelly is a facilitator, writer and performer living in Los Angeles, CA. She and her material can be seen weekly in the Improv Olympic West’s long running show “Big News” which the Chicago Tribune called “The best show to see in LA”. Her training includes Second City Los Angeles, The Groundlings, Improv Olympic West and Upright Citizens Brigade.
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For enrollment, course cost, or any other questions, please call Kelsey Tyler, Education Director
at 503.445.3793 or email him at kelseyt@pcs.org.
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