Shana Merlin

Shana Merlin is an American improvisational theatre performer, director, and teacher based in Austin, Texas. In 1999, she co-founded The Hideout Theatre with Sean Hill and later established Merlin Works, an improvisation training organization. Her stage work includes Dusk: Improvised Tween Erotica, an improvised parody of Twilight that she conceived and directed.

Merlin's work later expanded into applied improvisation for workplaces and medical and science communication. She served as a professor of improvisation at St. Edward's University, has worked with students at Dell Medical School, and became an associate at the Center for Health Communication at the University of Texas at Austin. Merlin's first Austin improvisational theatre and sketch comedy troupe was Los Paranoias, which she joined in 1998. Monks' Night Out identified Los Paranoias as one of its sister troupes and stated that the group performed Gun at Big Stinkin' Sketch and Improv Comedy Festival 3, as well as presenting improv performances at the Velveeta Room and the Ritz, with Merlin listed among the troupe's performers. Merlin performed with the Austin improvisational theatre troupe We Could Be Heroes and was one of its principals; the group focused on narrative performance and all-women shows. She also helped Sean Hill open The Hideout Theatre.

Merlin was a founding member of the all-female musical improvisation troupe Girls Girls Girls. The troupe created the Ladies Are Funny Festival (LAFF), and Merlin was an executive producer of the 2010 festival. In 2007, Merlin performed in its Boys of Summer series at The Hideout Theatre, in which the all-female troupe was joined by a male guest improviser each week. The group received two Rudy Kloptic Awards for Outstanding Improvisational Theatre Ensemble from the B. Iden Payne Theatre Awards.

In 2009, Merlin conceived and directed Dusk: Improvised Tween Erotica, an improvised parody of Twilight. In a 2010 New York Press interview about the production, Merlin said that she had originally intended only to direct it but joined its rotating cast after rehearsals began. She described narrative longform as the form of improvisation she performed most often and cited earlier genre-based formats including Star Trekkin, inspired by Star Trek, and Lola, structured after Run Lola Run, as well as Girls Girls Girls. Dusk later played at The Tank in New York City, where Dread Central recommended the run and noted that the production's Austin opening had sold out.

The Hideout Theatre

Merlin and Hill developed the Hideout as a multilevel performance venue at 617 Congress Avenue in Austin. It included a coffeehouse and cabaret space, a black-box theatre, an upstairs cabaret, and a workshop room. Merlin handled bookings, and the venue was intended to provide comparatively inexpensive performance space for other Austin theatre companies. The Hideout became a home for improvisational theatre and other stage productions.

The organization also developed improvisation-based training for workplaces and other organizations. In a Fox 7 Austin report, journalist James Irby followed Merlin leading a team-building session for staff at SafePlace, a nonprofit serving survivors of domestic and sexual abuse. The session used improvisational exercises intended to encourage collaboration, creativity, communication, responsiveness, and shared control. In 2013, Merlin Works moved its adult classes from the Salvage Vanguard Theater to Zach Theatre.

Medical communication

Merlin later applied improvisational training to medical and science communication. In a 2021 TEDxUTAustin talk, Why Your Doctor Should Be an Improviser, she argued that improvisational skills could improve physician–patient communication and medical training, and described using improvisation exercises with students at the Dell Medical School. Her applied-improvisation work has also included presentations on team building, communication, sales, persuasion, leadership, meetings, and creativity. Merlin was a Professor of Improvisation at St. Edward's University and became an associate at the Center for Health Communication at the University of Texas at Austin.