What Drives Us
Our mission, vision, and values guide everything we do — empowering neurodivergent voices, sparking creativity, and building playful, resilient communities rooted in inclusion and connection.
-
Mission
Through the art of improv, we empower neurodivergent individuals to discover their strengths, build social-emotional skills, confidence, connection, and resilience.
-
Vision
We envision a world where neurodivergent individuals can connect, grow, and thrive in spaces that value creativity, inclusivity, and play.
-
Values
Our values guide how we create and connect: welcoming, working together, building confidence, embracing the unexpected — and finding joy in the process.
-
We believe everyone has something valuable to contribute, and we work to create spaces where all voices are heard and celebrated.
-
Improv is all about saying “Yes, And…” — we grow by building on each other’s ideas, sharing trust, and creating something amazing together.
-
We help people discover their strengths, embrace who they are, and connect with others in meaningful ways.
-
We lean into life’s unpredictability, showing that improv – like life – is about adapting, learning, and celebrating mistakes as part of growth.
-
Laughter and play aren’t just fun — they’re powerful tools for learning, growing, and bringing people together.
MNprov’s Impact
Improv can be fun, inclusive, and spontaneous; characteristics that help students learn to participate in group activities, develop social skills, learn divergent thinking and even boost self-awareness and self-control.
Playing to Learn - Learning to Play
-
MNprov uses improvisational theater with a range of students who are neurodivergent or have social/emotional learning needs, and their teachers. We serve students from elementary grades to adulthood.
-
By offering safe, supportive and creative educational play, we help students reduce social anxiety and leave fears of social interaction behind. These and other outcomes, such as increased writing fluency, increased social skills and improved brain connectivity, have been documented by numerous studies.
-
Improving brain connectivity and efficacy
Improving divergent thinking
Reducing anxiety
Offering stress relief
Increasing inclusion
Multiple studies have also shown that improv has strengthened creativity and mental well-being.
During MNprov workshops participants practice the most important rule of improv, “Yes, And. . .” which allows students to genuinely listen to each other, accept ideas offered by their partner, and then add their own ideas to co-create a scene.
-
The goal is not to make neurodivergent students into neurotypical students, but to give them skills for success in school, work and life.
Through improv, founders Kelly Kautz and Michael Bruckmueller have seen students build relationships, increase confidence, and improve their communication and collaboration skills.
Students learn to listen to each other, accept new ideas, become flexible, consider different perspectives, understand and use non-verbal communication, have reciprocal conversation, participate in social interaction, be comfortable taking reasonable risks and making mistakes, tolerate uncertainty and increase resilience.
-
Educators agree. They find improv to be a catalyst in teaching social skills and problem solving. Applied improv addresses all five CASEL (Collaborative for Academic, Social & Emotional Learning) competencies: Self-Awareness, Self-Management, Social-Awareness, Relationship Skills, Responsible Decision Making.
Employers, too, have been encouraging schools to develop students’ capabilities with a growth mindset, resilience, flexibility, collaboration, communication, creativity and problem solving—all potential outcomes of improv.
“MNprov provided an invaluable resource and tools in planning for the upcoming school year. The use of improv is a fantastic catalyst in teaching social skills and problem solving.”
— Ben (Special Ed Teacher)
Standing Ovations