Bringing Life to the Conversation—Go Red for Women
When you think about discussions on critical public issues—such as heart disease, public policy, or community leadership—you probably imagine a serious panel discussion, PowerPoint slides, and maybe a few polite chuckles from the audience. But what if these conversations could be engaging, energizing, and even hilarious?
That’s exactly what The Theater of Public Policy (T2P2) brings to the table. Described as “if C-SPAN were suddenly swarmed by the cast of SNL,” our performances take real, substantive conversations and transform them into unscripted, thought-provoking, and laugh-out-loud moments.
Improv Meets Awareness: The Go Red for Women Luncheon
At the Twin Cities Go Red for Women Luncheon, we had the incredible opportunity to bring our format to an issue that impacts millions of women: heart disease. The event featured an inspiring panel of medical professionals, CPR advocates, and a cardiac arrest survivor who shared eye-opening insights about the importance of CPR, survival rates, and the challenges women face in getting immediate care.
Here’s a staggering fact we explored: Every 30 seconds without CPR reduces a person’s chance of survival. Yet, many people hesitate to perform it—whether from fear of doing it wrong, lack of training, or social discomfort.
Our improv cast took this weighty conversation and turned it into a fresh, engaging way to internalize these lessons. From scenes about awkward high school CPR training to a man negotiating who his "CPR best friend" should be, our performance helped audiences process the information in a way that was relatable, memorable, and (of course) funny.
Why This Works
Our format doesn’t trivialize important topics—it enhances them. Research shows that humor improves retention and engagement. By combining insightful discussions with on-the-spot humor, we help people absorb and remember critical messages long after the event ends.
When organizations bring us in, they get more than a performance—they get a unique way to connect with audiences, spark conversation, and reinforce their mission. Whether it’s a corporate conference, leadership summit, or awareness campaign, we tailor our approach to make the discussion both meaningful and entertaining.
Book a Show That Gets People Laughing—and Thinking
If you want an event that stands out, inspires action, and leaves audiences both entertained and informed, The Theater of Public Policy is ready to take the stage. Let’s turn your conversation into an experience people won’t forget.
Transcript
Date: Feb. 7, 2019
Event: Twin Cities Go Red Luncheon | The Theater of Public Policy Show
Tane Danger:
Hi everybody. Hi, so, so excited to be here. My name's Tane Danger. I am the host and co-creator of this thing called the Theater of Public Policy. So this whole event, it's a lunch and learn. And so this is the learning part of the event. You are already doing the lunch, you're doing a very good job. Now's the learning part. So theater of Public Policy, I always like to just start like this to get everybody on the same page. So if you have never seen the Theater of Public policy before, please applaud. Good. That's good. That is the most applause that we get in a show. So what do we do? So we are going to talk to some very smart people up on stage, and then we have this team of amazing improvisers who's listening to all of it, and they're going to bring all of the wisdom and smarts, ideas and things that we have talked about with this amazing panel to life on stage.
Now, I am extremely excited about this panel because I think that probably, I assume most folks if you're here, understand that heart disease and the things that we're talking about are a big problem. But I did not realize how big a problem and how severe it was until we started kind of planning and getting ready for this event. For example, I did not know that heart disease is the number one killer of women more so than any form of cancer. And so part of our job here today and with this organization is to try and change some of that. And in order to do that, we need to be smarter about it, we need to know more about it. And luckily we have an amazing panel that is going to help us do that. So I have four folks that we are going to introduce, four amazing women who are going to join me on stage.
You should and probably can applaud for each of them, but I'm going to keep going through because we have a limited amount of time. So with that, first up, Jen Althoff is a communication supervisor in emergency medical dispatcher for North Memorial Health Ambulance. Since 2014, she has been working steadily on efforts to decrease the time to first compressions for victims of cardiac arrest. Everybody, Jan Althoff. Yay. Alright, next. I know they all deserve much slower and more generous introductions, but they only gave me eight minutes. So Alicia Bravo is a cardiac arrest survivor and emergency department registered nurse at Hennepin Healthcare. A big round of applause. Alicia Bravo. Kim Harkins is program manager at the Center of Resuscitate Medicine at the University of Minnesota. Big round of applause for Kim. And last, and certainly not least, Dr. Johanna Moore has been practicing emergency medicine at Hennepin Healthcare in Minneapolis since 2012.
She also serves as the laboratory research director and works with Hennepin County EMS in management of cardiac arrest patients. Please, a big round of applause, Dr. Joanna Moore and all four of our amazing panelists. Okay. Alright. So like I said, we actually have now seven minutes that we have to through this, but it's okay. We talked a little bit before this and I just wanted to start with we're talking about CPR and the importance of that. And it's sort of a thing that you hear like, oh, CPR is important. I see people do it on very important television programs, and so therefore it must be important. But can we put an actual figure or a number on how important it is to do CPR? What's the difference between if we do it or we don't do it when someone is actually suffering cardiac arrest?
Dr. Johanna Moore:
So sudden cardiac arrest is literally a disease state that has a 90% mortality in America, which is amazing because on TV it doesn't look that way.
Tane Danger:
No, everybody gets back up pretty much. Yeah, that's right. I watched some Grey's Anatomy. They mostly are fine.
Dr. Johanna Moore:
And so research shows seconds, literally every 30 seconds, your odds of survival decreases with G if you go without CPR. And so we have great first responders, EMS services and physicians, but we can't be at the patient's bedside within 30 seconds to a minute of their cardiac
Tane Danger:
Arrest. And we heard that a little bit in Allie's introduction, that the mortality rate goes up pretty dramatically every 30 seconds that something isn't done. And so then the question is, if we know that that every 30 seconds really makes a big difference if somebody's getting CPR or not, why are we all just doing it? What are the things that sort of scare us or stop us from doing it?
Kim Harkins:
So I think a lot of people are afraid to do CPR, they're afraid that they don't remember the steps or that they might do something wrong. And those types of hesitations make people pause and not start CPR right away.
Tane Danger:
I mean, I'll be CPR is right, scary to I think most people, even someone who's probably been trained in it, it's anytime you're dealing with life and death. But then I was in the wonderful expo out here and there was one of someone who's actually a survivor and had had CPR to save his life. And he's like, oh yeah, well, they were doing CPR on me, they cracked one of my ribs. And I'm like, I don't want to crack somebody's rib. That's terrifying. But if you don't do that,
Kim Harkins:
They have no chance for survival If nothing's done. As Joanna said, the time that passes is so important and so that early CPR is critical and broken ribs can be repaired. There's something that we can fix, but you have to make sure that they get there alive to fix them. So starting CPR and some of the minor things that can happen are all repairable.
Tane Danger:
I mean, Alicia, can I ask you to maybe share your story because I mean you are literally living, breathing evidence of the fact that this really matters. So
Alicia Bravo:
Yes, again, my name is, I am 20, sorry, not 20. I wish I was 20. I am 39 years old and when I was 37 on January, my gosh, why am I so nervous? No, you're 20. It's okay. It's your first time doing this.
Tane Danger:
Start
Alicia Bravo:
On July 1st, 2017, that's where I was getting the 20 from. I had swimming training for a triathlon at my parents' home in Wisconsin and I was going to swim across the lake and run home. And I asked my dad to trail me in a boat. And along with my sister, my brother-in-Law, my three nieces and my youngest son were all trailing me in the boat and I was swimming for about five minutes and I stopped and looked at my dad and I mouthed the words help. He flew through a flotation device at me and I just wasn't responding in the water. And my sister jumped in the water and swam to me and I whispered the word breathe two times to her before going lifeless in the water. She swam my body back to the boat and my dad lifted me out of the boat and knew I didn't have a pulse that I wasn't breathing. And he immediately started CPR. I had chest compressions and the Lucas machine on me, which was out in the demonstration area for 20 minutes. I had CPR before I was defibrillated out of ventricular fibrillation. I'm an ER nurse. I've performed CPR countless times and I never once thought it would happen to me. I have never been such a bigger advocate for inspiring everyone to learn CPR and you can save a life. I am living proof.
Tane Danger:
I mean, that is a very powerful story. That is amazing. Thank you. I wanted to touch on one of the other challenges or hurdles because CPR we've established generally kind of scary, but then we also have research and studies that show women are less likely to get CPR than men if they are going into cardiac arrest. And I'm wondering if anyone can sort of jump, why do we have some theories as to why that happens and then maybe how we can start to think about closing that gap?
Kim Harkins:
Well, I think it's generally scarier on a woman just because you have to potentially remove clothing and those are some of the hurdles that people will hesitate. I think the other thing is that often when we look at who is getting trained in CPR, we see a lot of women attending CPR classes primarily because they're caring for the children or it may be something in their job that they need to get training. And so with a large portion of cardiac arrest happening in a private home, often the person who's trained in CPR, if it's the woman when she collapses, nobody else knows what to
Tane Danger:
Do. I'm going to just call this out and underscore this because you're being very nice, polite about it, saying like, oh, women are more likely to go and get the CPR training. Another way of putting that is men are kind of crapping out here and not pulling their weight. They aren't going and getting the CPR training, they're just leaving it to the women to do it, which is lame to say the least. Yeah. And so that seems like part of it is to try and close some of that gap that if you are a man who is in the audience, you should be going and getting CPR. If you know a man, you should tell that person to go get CPR. If you don't know any man, wow.
Kim Harkins:
You can also be your children, your other family members. I mean, children obviously can learn CPR and have performed it and saved many lives.
Tane Danger:
And this is actually, we heard just a bit about this, but you helped, am I correct, you helped work on this bill that made it so all high schoolers in Minnesota now learn CPR, is that correct?
Kim Harkins:
Yes. There is a mandate that requires CPR training for all students at least one time between grades seven and 12 in Minnesota high schools, which is really training a whole generation of lifesavers that will impact some of those statistics.
Tane Danger:
That is very cool. That is a very powerful thing. So at some point everyone's going to get it, and yet you learn it in high school. And I imagine a lot of us probably maybe took CPR class once, maybe we thought about it once and then, I dunno, we just let it go. We dropped it, we didn't pick it back up or we learned it in a different way than it used to be. And so I'm wondering, and I'll come down to the end, if we are in that space where we're like, oh, I remember I'm supposed to do something, I'm supposed to step on the chest and I'm supposed to slap the person, I don't know, what am I supposed to do?
Jan Althoff:
The good news is if you do dial 9 1 1, the dispatchers will take you through every step of the way, including providing emotional support, coaching you. So if you don't have your CPR training, emergency medical dispatchers will take you through chest compressions until first responders get there. So no fear that you're doing it the wrong way.
Tane Danger:
And this is a really important piece that as a program we're talking about today, you are trained in talking folks through CPR as a dispatcher and a lot of dispatchers are, but not all of them because it's not mandated.
Jan Althoff:
So we are working in Minnesota towards legislation to have all public safety answering points. All 9 1 1 centers have a protocol in place to be able to provide CPR. So that is in the works right now, and it's exciting times to do that.
Tane Danger:
And we are specifically asking folks here in this room and there is in the resource center behind us, the expo that's there a way to contact your legislators and say, this is something we want. We think that every 9 1 1 dispatcher, every EMS dispatcher should know how to talk people through this,
Jan Althoff:
Right? So we're looking at different ways where we can make that happen, whether it's those centers themselves becoming certified to do it or transferring to a center who is already providing medical dispatch.
Tane Danger:
I wanted to come back over here again. We've established this is really important. It really does. It can double or even triple the chance of survival for someone. If you are doing CPR. We've established some of the reasons why it's sort of scary. And so I guess as sort of a closing piece, I just ask each of you we're talking about legislation, we're talking about people should do this, but how do we actually start? Let's just, hopefully folks here are feeling very motivated. They're thinking, yeah, I get it. This is important. What do we do? What do you do from here?
Dr. Johanna Moore:
I think if you don't know how to do CPR in somebody, you should learn. And if you do know, then you need to spread the word. And then the most important thing is an emergency physician. I see this time and time again when a crisis happens, people are stuck in the moment. They're scared, they're not realizing what's happening. And you have to not be afraid. You have to just do it. If someone's not breathing and they're not responsive, just start CPR. You're not going to hurt them.
Tane Danger:
What if you'd start doing it and then it turns out that they were just like hanging out.
Dr. Johanna Moore:
Yeah, they'll wake up. I work down the street in the emergency department and we have a lot of types of patients who come in and people are out laying on the sidewalk intoxicated or sleeping or whatever they're doing. Often they'll wake up and say, stop doing that. Perfect. You're not cardiac arrest, no harm done. Sometimes those people are really sick from another reason. And when I'm seeing them in the emergency department, the issue of I got CPR and my ribs broken or my chest hurts, it doesn't come up. So I would not be afraid that you're going to hurt somebody. But the most important thing is if you do CPR on somebody and you save their life, wow. The benefit is so much greater than the risk there.
Tane Danger:
That's beautiful. So be brave.
Dr. Johanna Moore:
Yeah.
Tane Danger:
Step one,
Dr. Johanna Moore:
Be brave.
Tane Danger:
Yeah. What else? Again, folks here are paying attention. They're motivated. They've got a lunch in their stomach. They're like, I want to do something. What should we be asking them or pushing them to do?
Kim Harkins:
Well, I think there's lots of opportunities to learn CPR if you don't have that opportunity or if you haven't come across the opportunity. There's a lot of online resources that have short videos on how to do CPR. There's even some fun CPR videos that the American Heart Association has off that really just show those basic steps. And if you feel like you need refresher or you're unsure, watch those videos. Because honestly, doing something is always better than doing nothing.
Tane Danger:
So we're in a world now where we do hands free or hands-free. CPR? Yeah, where you just throw your whole body at it. No hands only CPR. Right?
Kim Harkins:
Right.
Tane Danger:
So wait, can we just, because when I learned CPR originally I was a lifeguard and you had to do two breaths, 15 compressions, two breath, 15 compressions. Now we're saying just do the hands part. Is that a fair characterization?
Jan Althoff:
Right. Studies have shown that increased survival rates happen when you can do continuous compressions. Our EMDs, our medical dispatchers, are providing continuous compressions for long periods of time because that blood that's within the circulatory system is circulating throughout the body and it's increasing survival rates. So starting early continuous compressions is really important.
Tane Danger:
And maybe this is just a quick moment to pause and say, what is happening when we are doing that CPR? Because if we're only doing the hands part, what are we actually doing there? How is it actually helping someone?
Dr. Johanna Moore:
So cardiac arrest is a disease state where literally your heart is not working, it's not pumping, it's not providing blood pressure or perfusion to the rest of your body. And the most important part that it's not perfusing is your brain. So when you're pumping on somebody's chest, you're providing blood flow to the whole body, including the brain. You're functioning is that person's heart.
Tane Danger:
Okay, so we've got be brave. We are going to learn CPR to beat someone's heart. And do we have two last? What should folks do when they're done here today?
Alicia Bravo:
I would like each of you to go home and talk to your loved one, your mom, your dad, your brother, your sister, your neighbor, the person behind you at Target, anyone. And just say, do you know CPR? And if you don't or if you don't yourself, or maybe you haven't done it since you took it in high school, you need to learn it and you need to be confident and you need to spread the word and talk about it, because trust me, you want to surround yourself with people that can save your life. Chances are if you had a cardiac arrest, it will not be in the hospital. So you want people around you and you want every single person to be able to do this fairly easy skill.
Jan Althoff:
Lastly, I just want to add, oftentimes we don't recognize those symptoms of that precede cardiac arrest event. So it's really important to make awareness, especially in women too, that can present a little bit differently. Upper back jaw, neck, shoulder, not only the chest discomfort. So recognizing those symptoms and Dolly 9 1 1 early is really important.
Tane Danger:
On that note, on these four amazing women who have shared both their own stories and really valuable, important information, please can we do a tremendous round of applause. Jan Altoff, Alicia Bravo, Kim Harkins, Dr. Joanna Moore. Thank you so much. They have absolutely been wonderful. We are going to trade places here they are here. So what happens now? I am going to turn the stage over to the cast of the Theater of Public Policy, who's been listening to that entire conversation all about the importance of CPR and some of the challenges and struggles with it. Their job is to turn that all entirely unscripted, improv, comedy, theater. So everything they do is entirely made up on the spot, off the top of their heads. Be generous and make a big round of applause for the theater of public policy.