Shana Merlin

Shana Merlin is an American actor, comedian and writer. She was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia where she first started improvising at the age of 16 at Dad's Garage Theater Company. Merlin has appeared in her award winning one-woman shows "Chicken Soup for People Who Like Chicken Soup" and "Today's Special." After starting her improv career with Los Paranoias, The Oxymorons, and The Heroes of Comedy at the Hideout Theater, where she was a manager, she now regularly performs in Austin, Texas with Girls Girls Girls Improvised Musicals, winner of "Best Improv Troupe" in the Austin Chronicle Reader's Poll and producers of the LAFF: Ladies Are Funny Festival. Merlin also performs with her troupe two-man improv troupe, Get Up. She is the founder of the Merlin Works, which uses improvisational theater for corporate training and entertainment and the founder of the Merlin Works Institute of Improvisation which teaches shortform game play and narrative longform improvisation. and has been voted "Best Improv Teacher" and "Best Improv Class" in 2006 by the Austin Improv Collective.

External links

[http://www.merlin-works.com Website of Merlin Works and the Merlin Works Institute for Improvisation]

[http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=oid:594743 Article about the Grand Opening of the Merlin Works Institute for Improvisation in the Austin Chronicle]

[http://austinist.com/2008/03/05/the_merlin_work.php Article about the Grand Opening of the Merlin Works Institute for Improvisation in the Austinist]

[http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=oid:616089 Article about LAFF: Ladies Are Funny Festival in the Austin Chronicle]

[http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=oid:492028 Review of Get Up in the Austin Chronicle]

[http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=oid:78074 Article on the Opening of The Hideout Theater]

[http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/review?oid=oid:77134 Review of Shana Merlin's One Woman Show, "Today's Special"]

[http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=oid:75354 Write Up for Shana Merlin's One Woman Show, "Chicken Soup for People Who Like Chicken Soup"]