Wayne Brady Wants to Build an Improv Empire

Behind the scenes, Brady has big ambition. He wants to use his improv training to help build a consulting business with Mandy Takeda, his former wife who remains his business partner. Brady sees the tenants of improv, active listening and an openness to collaboration as a natural framework for coaching the best out of executives and other leaders. He also has a vision of improv centers that can help youth develop

self confidence and critical thinking skills. In our conversation, he speaks from the heart about why he's driven to spread the wisdom that comes from improv training. It's all coming up in this Strictly Business conversation. Welcome back to Strictly Business. Wayne Brady a multi hyphenit, if ever there was one in the entertainment business. Thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you so much for having me. I

was looking forward to this conversation. The thing I wanted to start by talking with you today was I understand, of course, you are a master of improv and have been doing improv in various forms I know for decades. Tell me, as I understand, of late, you have really been putting some thought and putting some things down in a more formal structure about how the tools, the skills of improv, the creativity that it takes to be good at improv, how those skills and tools might be applied

in other sectors for fun and profit. Tell us what, tell us what you and Mandy are working on in this area. Well, let me start off by saying that that the use of improv and the corporate sector. I'm not coming up with some you know, uh Um. I didn't just hit this great motherload of gold and I'm in the hills going look what I did. I founded Eureka. It's been there. In fact, people were doing that when

I first started doing improv. In fact, I joined a company called Sack Theater in the I want to say,

in the early nineties, and it was through sacked. UM, I started to learn improv or or the formalized version of what I think I've already been doing, and part of what I learned from them at that point, they were already doing corporate work for for Disney, doing t building and showing how the the the principles of yes, and you know that we can come into your business and we can show you X, Y and Z that

will help your team work together baby better. And groups like Second City and Io and and the Groundlings, They've

all had their various versions of it. So when I say I feel that I have a methodology that will work, it's really based on the methodology that I have put into play for myself, the way that I have been able to maneuver on stage using those tools, then to work off stage using those same tools in a pitch meeting, using those tools once I already have the job, using those tools to help run a show, UM, going to other businesses and saying okay, just like on stage, I

have a relationship with whomever I'm on stage with in order to make make a successful improvisational scene work, and if not even a scene like my one of my specialties is being being able to make an improvisational music piece work, which is basically jazz with your body, jazz with your body and jazz with your mind, and and being able to have the give and take to ebb and flow, the the listening skills to be able to take in everything that the person is saying as they're

taking it in process it not jumping the gun to come to my own conclusions immediately and going this is what the song is about, listening to what they say, taking the pieces of it, going okay, I see what you're going with, and and then we put the rules into play up yes and yes. I like this line of of of of you know, Boba Fett. It should should stay out of the cantina because it's a Star Wars scene. So that's great. Now I'm gonna take that yes, but let's add this so on top of it in

order to do the yes. And I did listen to you. I didn't come in with any preconceived notions. I didn't block you by going no, no, no, this is better Han Solo's mom. I walked into the no no, no, I didn't do it. I took in everything that you said.

I'm going to take it, and I'm going to add on to what you just gave me, and if we keep doing this back and forth, by the time we are finished, we should have an end product that sounds good, that is incredibly funny, and that has kept the audience guessing, but it satisfies them at the end of the day. That's how I feel a business should run. Now, that's in its most simplistic way, of course, when we know there's so many things that goes in that that go

into making a successful business. But I think the one thing that can be spoken of in a universal sense is a boss, employees, product or services rendered. Those things have to be done successfully in order for this business to continue to operate. One of the things about a business is when someone hears, oh you're you're a boss, So all these people work for me, I pay them, they should just do what the hell I said. That's

one way to do it. That's one way to have a bunch of unhappy people rousing about you, you know, next to the water cooler and and potentially not having your workflow be as smooth as it could be. You could lord over them and be a draconian boss, or you could take the cue from improvisation and you recognize that you have a team. You can take in various ideas. You can say yes and to them. You don't have to say yes, these are all the best ideas and and this is what our company is going to do.

But you can make people feel that they've been listened to. You can acknowledge that they've been listened to. And the best thing about improvisation, unless you're doing a scene by yourself, I'm very capable of walking on stage and doing an hour and a half by myself. That's great, that's fun, and it's a great parlor trick. But but you know, when I have the most fun and when I think I shine the most, it's just like on whose line

is in any way? Or when I'm on tour with my best friend Nathan Mangum, when I'm playing, when I when I can just play, when I take in your ideas, I'm better in that show because my buddy Jonathan has set me up. I'm better in that show than when I'm spinning by myself and just just uh the the center of attention and generating all of those ideas. There are no checks and balances. So in a business sense, what I'm what I would like to set is set up is is well because there's so many things I

want to do with this. But in the first place, be able to show showing a business setting, whether it's your coworker or whether it's boss, to get to employee, the yes and aspect, the listening aspect. That's a great way to to up your productivity simply by listening. It costs you nothing to just listen and make someone feel like they've been heard. You take the same skill and you give it to someone who may feel unimport like

their voice doesn't matter in that company. That's the that's the weak link in your company chain, because that's the person sending back at the machine going all I do all damn day is pull this lever. They don't care if a paper from one box, whatever, they don't care. If that person thinks that I don't care, then they don't care, and at some point mistakes will be made.

No one is invested in your scene or or in your company, right, everyone of the team feel that they're pulling the same way that that they're invested, that they want to to work towards the same common goal of finishing that scene or delivering a product or having having uh aid and an effort made. How do you learn how to be a good listener. It's a muscle. It

is an active muscle. I will say that. And if you're not used to using that muscle, it's just like I, I consider myself to be a socially awkward person, or like you know, an interviewer will go, Wayne, you must be a hoot at home, or they'll talk to my daughter. Your dad must make you laugh all day long. She goes, No, absolutely, because the person that I am when I'm not on stage, the narrative that I've told myself since I was a young child is I'm awkward when I'm dealing with more

than one person, and I don't UH on stage. I have no problem taking in information, sitting on it for a millisecond, and putting something out that uses the information that comes in. I have no problem being open. I think to be an active listener, the thing that we need to do is to be open. So the narrative that I tell myself in real life when I'm here is I can't really talk to these people right now.

But no, I don't know, I don't don't I don't want to go to this this event is because I'm closing myself off, so I haven't any space to listen, and I haven't any space to take anything in. So that's even something in my personal life that I had to learn to change that and to activate that. That's why I say it's an active muscle. Wayne at home has to actively practice let me hear you Okay, as it's coming in, Wayne, I really need to talk about the da da da da. Yes, I have to cogitate

and form something. But if if I take the extra second to just take everything in before I'm ready to answer, before I'm defensive, before I have to explain myself, before I have to make my point, right, I have to actively It's almost like the way that I pick picture it is is I have to actually just keep my hands down and and go okay mm hmm and really hear you yeah and I and I cannot allow myself to move into that relaxed space until I take it in and I really and And that's the that's the

way that we can learn it. How do you learn to be an active listener? You really have to listen. You have to take in everything that person says, that that other piece of the machinery that as they're saying, look, I want to talk to you about something some now. Well, and you know what if you're mad at me, well I'm mad at you too. I mean, as soon as you're doing this, this isn't happening. So just like on stage, I have to do both. I have to take it in and as it's in, I'm I'm taking it and

adding to it. That's the difference. Most people want to take it in or not and just give You have to take in, add give back. That's the one step that that most of us miss. What do you want to do with the kind of improv for business idea? Well, there are a few things. I'm going to be writing a book called called you know, making Ship Up, which

is which has been my brand for years. It was the title of my Vegas show and and my other production companies that um, because we really just that's all that we ever do, you know, in business and in life, we're all just making it up as we go along and hoping that it's not a spectacular failure by the time that our show is over. So so in terms of writing, writing a book and laying out of course and it and and it being a course where I feel that it overlaps business, but it also at the

root of it, it overlaps our interpersonal relationships. Because in business, just like in life and family, family and leisure, it's our relationships that can propel you to success or that can sink you. It's how you deal with the people around you. It's how it's how you talk to people, it's how you listen to people. It's how you make the people around you feel. Talent in this business just is not enough. It has to be talent mixed with

your relationships. And when I say relationships, I don't mean what's the I'm trying to think of the proper term. I don't mean mean me personally. I'm not a super network. There are people that are amazing at that, and they know everybody's phone numbers, and that's great. I'm not necessarily talking about that. I'm talking about how do you make the people around you feel so that when you leave the impression that you've left behind that's out of your control.

But what is in your control is when you're in the room. And I truly believe that the skills that improv give you give you an upper hand when you're in the room, and if someone doesn't like you at the end of the day, they don't like you, you keep it moving. But on the average, if you're able to practice these skills, whether at home or or in business.

So so the first part of that is going to be be the book, and the second piece, which I'm very proud of, is I'm going to be starting my own theater company slash school along the lines of an io or a second city here in Los Angeles and later one in my hometown of Orlando, Florida. And and

the basis of that. Recently, Mandy and I had a show on a network called b y U t V called Wayne Brady's Comedy I Q and and it was kind of the pilot program for what I want to work out in the real world, where where we took teenagers from all over the US and we had them compete. And we took these kids who were actors, singers. Some of them had in prompt training, some of them had sketch training, but most of them were at at the very basic level for that. And I said, I'm gonna

teach you these rules. Not not only are these my rules for on stage, but these are my performance rules for in life. And I'm going to teach you these rules and whatever you do with them, let's see if they enhance your skills. I can't teach you be funny, but I can teach you the rules. Improv only works in in a grid or in a framework to it

to hang it on the shows a success and using that. Now, I'm going to start doing the schools where I'm going to be teaching adult classes, um teaching sketch, improv, the these rules, putting, putting together a corporate sector that that will go into businesses and and consult I'll also have an advertising wing. Some of the best ideas come from the people who are fast on their feet and being able to go into these companies and come up with with ads for for them, showing them how to think

less critically sometimes times and more creatively. And then the third piece of that is it will also be a school for teenagers to to be able to help them take the skill into adulthood and go into certain neighborhoods like a South Central, like a Watts, places where people that look like me, where these kids that look like me haven't haven't been taught the skills that I was able to take in terms of improvisation and character building. And someone might might look at it from a distance

and go, well, why do they need that? Well, I tell you why. If someone can stand in front of a crowd and have a conversation and feel confident in who they are using the skills of uh if I can listen to you and I can tell you clearly and exactly who I am, and not only can I think critically, but I can think creatively and fast. You're you are prepping them for a life on stage, You're prepping them for a life that Those are life skills, and I wish that I would have had someone to

help me with those when I was younger. I I think everything worked out well for me, but the but, the but, the crushing self doubt, the the lack of sense of self that I had growing up until I found these skills. I want to impart them earlier. And so that's the dream, that's the rollout, and all of this is we are starting now. We have hit the ground running, and I'm hoping to have the first first company up in in less than a year. We'll take a pause here and be back with more from Wayne

Brady and we're back with Wayne Brady. As you're talking. What's also great about this is that improved this kind of creativity. It's the same with writing, you know, with that rudimentary it's a it's a great leveler. You don't have to have an arm like a cannon, you don't have to be built like a linebacker to All you need is just to spark that spark, that creative, creative gene.

And I've also heard other actors say that that kind of this kind of work also helps with rejection, because there is a lot of rejection in the entertainment business.

And when you realize that, you know you're looking at one of you could go any direction in any split second decision, and you go this way, and you know, you kind of come to know that you know there were many paths, and maybe maybe one path might have been more successful, but it was your choice, and it was your choice in the moment in a way that in a way that I think that can help people, and I can, I can, I can really see an application here for teenagers for all the reasons you said,

to be able to stand up and speak articulately. And although this sounds like a cliche. Truly find your voice in a in a setting of where people come together and agree. You know, there's not gonna be any stupid choices. There's not going to be there's such an ethos of all the actors that have been involved in this, there's there's also it seems like a very healthy ethos around

the around the improv community. Absolutely, and and I think some something that it also helps teach is accountability m because when you're on stage and you have to make a choice. One of the things that was drilled into me when when I was learning was in theater sports, which is another improv type thing that I was involved in. UM it's an improv competition and I and I got involved in Orlando, but also did it out here in Los Angeles. UM is one of the rule rules is

no waffling. And the waffling was you've got to make a decision. It's especially in that split second. You've got to make a decision, and you know what, sometimes it will not be the best decision, but you've got to pick a course and go with it as opposed to well, I mean, I guess I can do that. And oh and in the world of business, just like in real world,

you have to make decisions sometimes. And the reason that it teaches accountability is because if if I'm on stage and and I decide, guys, I'm taking the scene in this in this direction, Let's say the scene tanks. Okay, fine, when we get off stage, I'm not gonna turn around and go why didn't you guys back me up? You guys sucked? Why did you do Why did you know? I made that choice. You guys made the choice to yes and me and go with me. But I made

the choice to do this thing. I stick by that, and I had no chance in the moment to back

off from it. I had to commit to that choice and go and And there are so many situations in business where instead of just passing the buck, instead of just going, oh, well, I don't want to do it, I'll give it to Johnson teaching that if you can make a choice knowing that someone's got your back, that the rest of your team has yes handed you, and they have had your back you, you can make a clear and decisive choice, and you can be accountable to

that choice whether it pans out or whether it does not. And if it doesn't, what are you gonna do when it doesn't no time to sit, because when we're on stage, we have to go, oh, you didn't get a laugh with that thing, Okay, I've got something else. Or from an on in an audition and they tell me to pivot, okay, cool. Um, I can do this voice, or I can make this choice, or I can give you an eighty seven year old man. What I can be a little blonde girl from from Malibu.

Whatever you need right now, Wayne Brady can do that for you right now before I leave this room. That's the type of thing that that you have to have. And all of those come from that grid of improv and there's a there's a sense of you gotta be game, and that is for sure, it's business. You gotta be game to be on that you know, to get out there on the stage. Tell me how young Wayne Brady, growing up in Orlando, Florida, got interested in improv and performing.

Young Wayne Brady started performing when he was sixteen. Um sixty fifteen ish Um. I was a junior in high school and I had a moment like fame. I'd always fantasized in my head about being a performer, but in my household, I was raised by my by my grandmother and grandfather who are from the Virgin Islands, very strict island upbringing. It was all about school and manners and how you present yourself topped off on top of my father was in the military, so I was rayed with

a military work ethos. So it was all about you keep you keep your head down and you do what you're told, and you don't talk out, you don't disrespect people. You keep your mouth shut unless you're spoken to when you go. So none of that is very conducive towards the arts. So I harbored any love that I had for any of that stuff. I kept it to myself. Home from school, I would go in my room, I would close close the door, and I had a little

black and white TV. And I watched a lot of PBS because one of the only channels that that I got, and PVS. I watched a lot of old specials. I watched Sammy Davis Jr. In the rat Pack. I always wanted to be like Sammy. I was old sketch shows. I'm talking old old um like uh Ernie Kovacs, the show, the Show of Shows, Sids Caesar. I would see British sketch shows, uh, Benny Hill, Monty Python, the Goodies. I would see old black and white movies with Sydney Poitier,

the old MGM musicals. Um. So I grew up having this foundation of if only I can do any of those things, or or I could sing and dance like in West Side Story or in Black and Blue and and um. But I kept that to myself until my junior year, where as an elective, I was able to take theater and I got a part in the school play because one of my r OTC brothers he dropped out of the school play and I had to play it off. He's like, hey, guys, um, I'm gonna drop

out of this play because I've got a crew tournament. Uh. It shows you what kind of school I was in, because we had a crew team. He said, we've got a crew tournament. Does somebody want to take over? I've got like two lines or something, and everyone's like no, man, players are stupid. And then I say, yeah, um, you know what, I'll do it. It'll be so funny because I'll be making fun of him super the theater geeks, right, yeah, all right, Like oh my god, I did to be

on stage. So I walked in and it was like fame and so these kids laughing, talking, dancing on top of the piano. Everyone's doing voices, and it was the happiest that I'd been in all of my years up to that point in school. And I met my tribe, I met my people, and I fell in love, and I dropped RTC after two years in Of course, we have to have a family talk about that, because we all thought that I was going to be in the

military and go in as an officer. It happened the only time that I want to hold a gun in marches if you're paying me to do it on TV. UM. So that's how I got started. And about two years later, uh after I graduated, I met a woman named Claire Sarah who now was a successful screenwriter and runs a program called Right Girl. Sure. Yeah, So Claire Claire was

my mentor. Got me started an improv and she said, you're really funny, because I did and I did a did a did an industrial film with her, and of course I was a young whipper snapper and and she said, oh, that's so cute, and pad me on my head and said, hey, I'm married. And be you're you're you're funny. You want to come and take class from my husband and I. We do a proversations. I said, a provisation. What's that?

She goes, it's it's theater that that we make up right then on the spot when oh, like when I'm playing make Believe in my room, which is weird for a for a twenty year old to say, but then, uh,

my life has changed forever. And I got involved with Zack Theater and then seven of us moved out to Los Angeles a couple of years later, and we formed a group called the House Full of Punkys and we played shows all around town and we started doing a regular show with the ACME over on the Bray or the Old act Me first of course, and we got best best improv comedy group in l A. And we got the interest of the producers of Whose line is

it any Way? And when they were holding the auditions, we auditioned, and when the smoke cleared, I had the job and changed my life forever. I know that you and Mandy also, do you also have some content production going? Tell tell us about what you're working on in that space. I'm so excited about it. It's it's uh the move I think that you make when your desire is to not just be the guy they pay, but the person

who one day becomes the one who pays others. And and to create jobs, to create opportunities, to create a space. So Mandy and I our company a Wayne and Mandy Creative. Our mission is to create product and entertainment that not just makes you laugh or makes you feel something, but moves the needle and I feel. And I can't speak for anyone else because I can only speak for Wayne. And now we are heading into a world where entertainment

is more important than ever. And I'm not overvaluing it because Lord knows, there are people doing jobs that are so important. But I mean entertainment because so much of what happens in the culture, in the zeitgeist, is pushed from entertainment. We get our our escapism from entertainment. He sometimes get our news from entertainment, like Stephen Colbert and

Trevor Noah. You get intelligent news from comedic sources because the jesters, since since the days of the Kings, were the ones that brain bring the bad news and sometimes talk the king down from from chopping someone's head off job.

So instead of put hang out negative things into a world that is already filled to the brim with negativity, we wanted to be able to help and move the needle, whether it's with race, whether it's with talking the gender space and sexuality, UM to be able to have have

those thoughts. So we have a few shows. We have a show with Jerry Bruckheimer that's in development for CBS All Access now Paramount plus UM called UM called Barstow, a f about a young gay Polynesian kid who leaves leaves Hawaii and comes to Barstow, California, and then to Barstow it is. It is that would be quite a culture shock from Hawaii. Get it, and he has to change everything about himself. He has to completely take that light and put it under a bushel and become a

different dude during the day. But then in his mind we get to see how fabulous he is. And there's a bunch of story story connected with it. But but that's something that we am sold sold with je Bruckheimer UM. We also have a novel that is in development right now with a producer called Tommy Lynch by an author named April Daniels um called called Dreadnot, which is about

a trans superhero. So not only does this young hero have to navigate this change within themselves, but then it's for the world to see as they're trying to protect us from all these uh world crushing um you know, the same things that Superman Man would deal with, except this person is dealing with with a great change within them them themselves and how a super identity plays with the idea of the Clark Kent nature, uh identity? Who am I? Who? Who do I want you to see

me as? And how does the world accept that person? And we and and what I love about April in the book is it is it's a great superhero book, which I'm a superhero geek um um, I love it. But it also is a commentary on how we treat and how the world has treated those that they look at as other, whether it be black, white, trans, gay, lesbian, anything that doesn't fit the status quo. So that's in

development right now. Um and uh. We have a sitcom based on our life at c at CBS right now about a blended family of myself, my ex wife who is Asian and Caucasian, and me being black, our daughter being mixed race, and Mandy's boyfriend being mixed race, and all of us being one family, and what are the conversations that happened with that? So everything that we're doing has an agenda. What you're gonna have fun? While we

pushed the agenda forward and nobody would. We would all forgive you if you call, if you gave it the working title the Brady Bunch, which thank you for the forgiveness. But just know that I shall never commit that crime. Those of Sherwood Schwartz will come. I'm sorry, Mr Schlwretz. No, no, no, I promise it will happen, will be Brady. But my goodness, well it sounds like quite a bit going on under the under the Brady umbrella these days. Thank you so

much for taking the time to talk with us. I will absolutely look for your book because I can tell you, in my line of work, I'm still working on being a better listener. In my line of work, as the as a mother, as a partner to there, there is no greater skill than being able to truly listen and have that empathy. And I think you really talked us through really really important reasons why the improv form is so great for that. I I can't wait to see what what becomes of your two books and your UM

and all your other endeavors. Wayne, thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you, I really appreciate you. Thanks for doing some active listening with Strictly Business today. Be sure to leave us a review at Apple Podcasts. We love to hear from listeners, and be sure to tune in next week for another episode of Strictly Business