Founded in 2011 in New York City by actor, writer, and storyteller, Kevin Allison, The Story Studio is the educational offshoot of Kevin’s hit true storytelling podcast, RISK! Telling true stories changed Kevin’s life and career, and his podcast listeners told him that hearing true stories saved their lives and inspired them to tell their own stories. They began to ask Kevin if he could teach them to tell stories and help them apply principles of storytelling to everything from personal growth to performance to business situations.
This inspired Kevin to create The Story Studio to offer storytelling training to anyone who might need it. As demand for The Story Studio’s classes grew, Kevin recruited a small group of some of New York City’s most expert and seasoned storytellers, and together, they built a methodology for teaching the art of personal storytelling that is based on the needs of students, the challenges that they face and the questions that they commonly ask.
After starting with just one small Introduction to Storytelling class in New York City, The Story Studio soon grew to offer one-on-one coaching and multiple types of storytelling classes in cities across the United States and online, as well as corporate storytelling training around the world, including in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Latvia and online.
The Story Studio has led workshops for a wide range of businesses in industries including tax, technology, fashion, retail, health, banking, advertising, philanthropy, media, and more. We’ve worked with small businesses, nonprofits, and Fortune 500 companies. Anyone who needs to improve their communication to achieve their goals can benefit from working with us.
Storytelling is growing in popularity as a tool for success in personal, artistic, and business communication pursuits because people know that great storytelling brings great results. Storytelling is central to effective, memorable, and compelling communication because stories cut through jargon to communicate ideas, cross divides, and transform complex, technical, and often dry information into a relatable human narrative that people will remember and be moved by.
The Story Studio’s training is in high demand because we demystify the process of building and sharing a compelling story in a way that students can easily understand and apply to their lives and work, and in a way that many other storytelling schools do not. That’s why our clients consistently tell us that our corporate workshops help their employees make great strides in their communication skills in a way that other workshops never did.
We look forward to continuing to help individuals and groups revolutionize their communication skills, one story at a time.
With his writing and acting work on the legendary sketch comedy series The State on MTV, as well as Reno 911!, Flight of the Conchords, High Maintenance, Blue Man Group and more, Kevin Allison has created all kinds of stories.
Cyndi Freeman has over 20 years of experience as a storyteller and 10 years of experience as a storytelling instructor, leading classes in storytelling for business, performance and personal growth.
Brad Lawrence is a storyteller, solo show performer and teacher who has performed to sold out crowds around the United States and the UK.
A New England native currently based in Brooklyn, Wes Hazard has been named as one of 5 Boston Comedians to Watch by The Boston Globe Magazine. Wes is a multiple-time winner on The Moth StorySLAM stage and he’s appeared as a guest on the podcasts RISK!, Comedy Bang! Bang! Live!, and The Story Collider.
Gail Thomas loves helping each storytelling client find, shape and share their own unique voice. She has taught storytelling workshops to businesses such as Merck, Pitney Bowes, Dentons, Ahimsa Ashram and Hour Children, and young people at the Girl Scouts, ROW NY, Legal Outreach, 826NYC and the Calhoun School.
David Crabb’s stories have appeared on The Moth, RISK! & NPR. He has taught corporate workshops at Google, Facebook, Viacom, Uber, Prudential, Bravo, US Forestry Service, Fidelity, and Novartis.
JiJi Lee is a comedy writer, performer and storyteller based in NYC. She took her first storytelling class in 2012 and she’s been hooked ever since! She has performed storytelling and comedy at The Kennedy Center’s Story League Show, a New York Times Opinion Live event with Maureen Dowd, RISK!, Asian AF at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, Generation Women at Caveat, and more.
Bryan Kett is an award-winning teacher, writer, and storyteller based in Los Angeles. He received his Masters in creative writing from DePaul University and graduated from the writing program at the Second City Training Center in Chicago. He’s a multiple Moth GrandSLAM winner, and his stories have been featured on The Moth, RISK!, KCRW, TED.com, and SoulPancake.
Actor, writer, storyteller and teaching artist Amy Salloway is a big fan of the Venn Diagram spot where live theatre, social activism and human connection overlap. Her creative work has focused on stripping the shame and stigma from experiences that are hard to talk about – bullying and discrimination, weight bias and body image, sexual violence, disabilities, and chronic illness.
Julia Whitehouse is a writer, performer, and storyteller who has lived all over the world and loves New York City the best. Her show, NAKED PEOPLE, ran at the Upright Citizens Brigade in NYC and LA and the 2013 Women in Comedy Festival. Trained in improv and sketch at UCB, she is a Moth Slam winner and has performed her stories for RISK!, Ask Me, The Soundtrack Series, Solocom, Nights of Our Lives, and So Into It.
Dawn J. Fraser is a storyteller, producer and nationally acclaimed communications coach based out of Brooklyn, NY and San Jose, California. She is the creator and host of the show “Barbershop Stories,” which features storytellers performing true tales in barbershops and salons around NYC, and is the founder of Fraser’s Edge, which offers programs for businesses, nonprofit organizations, college students, speakers and entrepreneurs to develop leadership potential through storytelling.
Michelle Walson is a writer/director with a passion for story. She received her M.F.A. in film production from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, where her short film, Chin Up, won the Audience Choice Award at Atlanta Shortsfest and Best Graduate Film at NYU’s Fusion Film Festival.