SHANA MERLIN
FOUNDER OF MERLIN WORKS
Shana Merlin is a nationally recognized performer, trainer and teacher from the world of improvisational theater. Awarded “The Best Improv Teacher” and “Best Female Improviser” by the Austin Improv Collective, Merlin has been a professional improviser since 1995. She’s performed in improv festivals in Amsterdam, Calgary, Seattle and Atlanta, as well as co-founding Austin’s LAFF: Ladies Are Funny Festival.
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 Apple, HP, Dell, Whole Foods, Four Seasons, Advance Autoparts 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.
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.
Hailed by her students as “an incredibly great teacher: fun, open, organized, focused, and so very talented,” Shana continues to offer interactive workshops to all ages and skill levels.
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.