Photo by Agata Schoenborn

Christine Walters | Ringleader

“It’s more thrilling than riding a rollercoaster,” says Christine of live improv at ComedySportz, the club she founded in 1996. Like TV's Whose Line is it Anyway? her players form teams who compete in a live, unscripted battle of wits. “I tell my players, if you're going to fail, fail big! You can always get up after a tumble but, if you're afraid to fall, you'll never get off the ground.” Shown here in her backstage office, Christine has parlayed the communication principles of improv into a corporate teambuilding program.  “Through improv, business teams learn the art of connecting and communicating,” she says. “At first, they're skeptical. They think I'm teaching them how to be funny. But improv is all about listening and responding from your truest place. It forces you to stay very, very present.”