Shana Merlin, Founder
Shana founded her company, Merlin Works, in 2003, providing custom training, interactive presentations, and comedy shows to businesses and organizations using improvisation. She has been serving clients such as HomeAway, Dell, T-Mobile, and Deloitte as well as schools and non-profits. Some of her most requested programs are on the topics of team building, communication, sales, persuasion, leadership, medical communications, and creativity. In 2008, She founded The Merlin Works Institute for Improvisation, offering classes in improv comedy to adults in Central Texas. In 2013, Merlin Works moved to the prestigious ZACH Theatre campus on the shores of Lady Bird Lake in Austin. After training at the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University, she became a lecturer in the College of Medicine Texas A&M University and an associate at the Center for Health Communication at the University of Texas Dell Medical School and Moody College of Communication.
Shana performs in the improv troupes B Iden Payne Award Winning Girls Girls Girls Improvised Musicals, the Austin Critics Table Award winning duo Get Up and directed and performed in Dusk, a Twilight parody on national tour in 2010. Shana can also do scripted work and performed in the national touring company of The Intergalactic Nemesis.
Shana lives, plays and works in Austin, Texas with her two children.
Our Trainers
Newsletters
For over a decade, Shana has written articles connecting improv with everyday struggles at work, home, and family.
2018
2017
- My Love Letter to GGG With a Dozen of Tips for Making the Improv Love Last
- What’s Wrong With Improv? The Dark Side of Yes And
- How Can You Enjoy Your Vacation More? The Improv Brain as Tourist Brain
- Presence is a Muscle, You Can Make It Stronger
- Building Anticipation… Without Runaway Expectations
- Feeling In Control And Out of Control
- Can You Be Too Committed? Deeper is Better, Until it Isn’t
2016
- When Seeking to Persuade, Listen First: I know, I don’t want to do it either.
- Explaining Basic Improv Made My Kid Cry: Moms, ruining everything since 1901.
- When Improv Gets Personal: How much should we be expected to share? In class? On stage?
- Life and Death and Improv: What kind of failures are we celebrating?
- What Do We Want? Authenticity! When Do We Want It? Whenever It Feels Right To You.
- 1) Notice More 2) Use Everything 3) … Wait, what’s number three again?
2015
- Nostalgia is for Suckers: Things are pretty good now. And they weren’t that great to begin with.
- The Paradox of Passion: Sparks, Flames and Fuel
- IS IT OOB YET?!?: Your Guide To Improv’s Biggest Week of the Year
- Holy %$#~! : Swearing, Stabbing and Going Blue
- Don’t Believe Everything You Think: How Your Brain Lies to You
- What I Really Think About You: How to Give and Receive Feedback
2014