INCENTIVE: Broadway-Style Teambuilding

Can't get tickets for a group to see The Producers? Why not make them be producers? That's the idea behind Barkley Kalpak Associates' new teambuilding activity Broadway Your Way--an interactive take on business theater where employees themselves put on a show. After being put through a brief audition, participants break into smaller groups where Broadway professionals teach them song and dance numbers. The material is either taken from an existing musical or custom-written to fit a corporate image or event theme. (Sales reps from The New York Times' ad department performed numbers from a fictitious musical called The Paper.) At the end of the event, employees perform for each other, reinforcing ideas of teambuilding and risk-taking. The program has been reproduced for crowds of 80 to 400 people, at venues including hotel ballrooms, actual rehearsal studios and the Hudson Theatre. --Samantha Melamed
Posted 08.13.01