Over 40 years ago I attended New Games Foundation training and became a Certified New Games Referee. Imagine my delight and honor to meet Bernie De Koven, the man who was pivotal in the New Games movement. Bernie is an amazing person whose energy and love of play have helped thousands of folks realize that play is as important for adults as it is for kids! Bernie De Koven is a “founding father of play studies,” creating the Games Preserve, the first centre for the exploration of games and play for adults, Bernie continues to this day to explore the theory of fun and playfulness and how it can affect every aspect of personal and interpersonal, community and institutional health.
Last summer I met Amy in a workshop and fell in love with her immediately! . Her enthusiasm and love of improv is contagious. Amy Burge is an improviser, public school teacher and a mother of two very active teenage boys. Currently, she is a very involved in the Minneapolis improv community as a performer, a committee member (Tiny Funny Women Fest and FairPlay) and teacher. She is most excited about being able to teach improv at an adolescent chemical treatment center and would like to further he work in the area of mental health. 
Meet Eric Fisher, a mindful improviser! Though Eric’s younger years were heavily involved improv and the arts, his career has been in design and technology. After studying computer graphics and psychology at UPenn, he spent over a decade designing apps and online communities in addition to working at Facebook, Apple and Google in Silicon Valley. 
Enjoy Rick Thomas’s unique point of view on his experiences and the history of improvisational comedy. He’s an Alumnus Chicago Main stage Second City Resident Company; studied Improv with Second City Founders including the great Paul Sills and David Shepherd; acted with Meryl Streep, Kevin Spacey and other luminaries, and for Woody Allen and Mike Nichols. 
Gary Schwartz is an award-winning TV and film actor, director, comedian and a master improvisational acting coach whose 30 years as a performer and improv teacher has helped transform the lives of thousands of people, both on- and off-screen. He studied and worked with Viola Spolin,the mother of modern improv, and is the only master teacher to have ever earned an endorsement from both Viola Spolin and her son, Paul Sills, the co-founder and director of The Second City.
Meet Lisa Kays who holds an MSW from Catholic University and has been practicing psychotherapy with individuals, couples and groups since 2013. She holds an LICSW in Washington, D.C. and an LCSW-C in Maryland, and has acquired additional training from the Washington School of Psychotherapy’s ISTDP First Year Program and from Rehearsals for Growth! In addition, she has integrated improvisation into her work in a women’s prison, given workshops using improv techniques for individuals in recovery, and been a trainer in Washington Improv Theater’s WIT @ Work professional development and team building trainings. Over the past year, she has developed Washington Improv Theater’s first Improv for Mental Health Professionals class, which has received press on NBC4 and in The Washington Post. 
Meet the talented Elizabeth Simone, LCSW She is a professional improviser and therapist who has brought improv to the Bay Area and is the founder of Living Improv where she facilitates groups that combine improv with group therapy.