When Improv Becomes Your Career
In an era of division, the ability to communicate across differences is more important than ever. Tane Danger, founder of the Theater of Public Policy, recently spoke with Marketplace about how his improv-inspired methods are creating new avenues for civic dialogue.
Born out of a desire to make public policy more accessible, the Theater of Public Policy brings humor, curiosity, and collaboration to serious conversations. Tane’s work, supported by the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, has helped participants discuss challenging topics like reproductive rights and gun control in open, productive ways.
“The goal is to create something where people want to participate—not out of obligation, but because it’s fun, interesting, and engaging,” Tane explained during the interview.
Now, the program aims to expand beyond academia to bring these vital skills to communities nationwide. We’re hosting our first public Constructive Dialogue Workshop. Check it out here!
Read the full article on Marketplace.
Here’s a snippet from the interview.
We started the Theater of Public Policy, but I didn't actually have a degree in public policy, which I kept saying like, oh, if I'm going to run a show called The Theater of Public Policy, I should probably know something about public policy. So I applied for a Bush fellowship and that allowed me to go back to school to get my Master's of public policy from the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota.
The Humphrey School came back to me and said that they wanted to work on this existential, I will say, challenge in our society of how do we help people have dialogue across differences? We created a training that used best practices from communication theory, had some improv exercises in it to help get people in that collaborative, we're going to figure this out together, mindset, and then wove in like how do we use that in a policy or civic conversation?
Some people came in a little bit apprehensive, but by the end they were sitting down and having open conversations with each other on topics ranging from reproductive rights to gun rights, to L-G-B-T-Q issues, to income inequality, almost anything that you can imagine. And they were being able to both share their own story and values and listen and ask each other questions about why they believe those different things. And so now we're working with the Humphrey School on, can we bring this unique training out further? I'm really interested in, can we bring this to folks outside of an academic setting? I think that a training on how to have better conversations with people who see things differently than you do is something that 350 million Americans could benefit from.
We think that people should participate in civic programs or conversations about politics or policy because it's the right thing to do. It is your civic obligation to be informed about X, Y, or Z. I'm a public policy person. I agree. And I always say, how's that working out for you? If it's just sort of a sense of obligation to do it, we kind of know the limits of that. And so instead you can create something where people are like, oh, I actually really want to be part of that conversation. I actually really want to go and learn about this thing because it seems like it might be kind of fun. And there's other cool, interesting people who are there that I want to be with that seems like it's a much better way forward that has the potential to bring a lot more people into learning and understanding issues together, but also understanding each other in a whole other kind of way.