KAT KOPPETT
Kat joined the POAL team in 2004, bringing with her an extraordinary depth of experience with improvisation and storytelling in the workplace. She literally wrote the book on using improv in business — she is the author of Training to Imagine: Practical Improvisational Theatre Techniques to Enhance Creativity, Teamwork, Leadership and Learning, published by Stylus Publishing Inc. She was instrumental in creating the corporate training wing of Freestyle Repertory Theatre in New York, and spent a decade as a performer, head coach and the Corporate Division Director of BATS Improv in San Francisco. TheaterWeek Magazine named her one of 1995's "Unsung Heroes" for her creation of the improvisational theater format, Spontaneous Broadway, which is now performed regularly around the world.
Kat’s acting credits include the title role in The Diary of Anne Frank both Off-Broadway and in the Soviet Union; As You Like It with the Manhattan Stage Company and Fiddler on the Roof with Theodore Bikel. In 1998, her short play, Don't Get Around Much Anymore, was a winner in Playground's Emerging Playwrights Festival in San Francisco. She is currently the Training Director of and a performer with the Albany, NY-based Mop & Bucket Company. Kat holds a B.F.A. in Drama from New York University and an M.A. in Organizational Psychology from Columbia University.
ADAM GRUPPER
Adam joined the Performance of a Lifetime team in 2001 and has been a key player in developing and delivering our most ambitious development programs. He has been a professional actor for 20 years, appearing in seven Broadway productions including Guys and Dolls, 45 Seconds from Broadway and Baz Luhrman’s La Bohème, and numerous regional theatre productions. His television appearances include “Third Watch,” “The Sopranos,” “The Education of Max Bickford,” and “Law & Order.” His film credits include “Two Weeks Notice,” “It Runs in the Family,” “Night at the Museum,” and “Music & Lyrics.”
A graduate of Yale University with a degree in psychology, Adam worked for several years in the field of mental health, co-leading group therapy and providing individual counseling. He subsequently studied at HB Studios and The Actors Center and went on to teach at New York University’s Collaborative Arts Project and to coach acting privately. In addition, Adam is a presentation skills coach whose clients have included Lighthouse International, UNICEF, WITNESS, and Estee Lauder.
SEVANNE KASSARJIAN
Sevanne joined the Performance of a Lifetime team in 2005, and has been instrumental in designing and delivering our presentation coaching and training programs. As an actor and teacher she brings to her work a passion for lifelong learning and the ways in which the stage frees people to discover new ways of understanding and navigating the world. She taught her first theater-based executive development program In 1991 and has supported clients in a variety of settings to use the tools of acting and improvisation to address a wide range of themes, including cross-cultural communication, managing uncertainty, and creating learning organizations.
Among Sevanne’s TV credits are numerous daytime soaps, "Diagnosis Murder," and several flavors of “Law and Order.” Onstage she has appeared in leading roles at Manhattan Theatre Club, Yale Rep, and regional theaters around the country. She has taught speech and acting at the University of California, San Diego, and partnered with her mother, the anthropologist Mary Catherine Bateson, to create workshops within organizations that marry cultural anthropology tools with acting and improvisation techniques. Sevanne holds a BA from Brown University and an MFA from the University of California, San Diego.
SELVA RASALINGAM
Selva joined the Performance of a Lifetime cast in 2006 as a role-player, improviser and forum theater actor. Based in London, UK, he has broad experience in theater-based executive education, with particular focus on leadership and diversity. Clients include BBC, ABN-Amro, HSBC and Pfizer
His recent coaching work for Actors Space in London includes delivery of workshop programs in 2006 and 2007 for Peter Sklar's US-wide youth theatre project “Beginnings.” He has had leading roles in dozens of TV and film productions in his native UK, and was seen on the US National Geographic Channel as Herod in Secrets of Herod's Reign. His stage credits include touring the United States and United Kingdom as an actor with the Royal Shakespeare Company, during which he ran RSC workshops at the University of Michigan and Columbia University, New York. Selva trained at and is an Associate of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (A.G.S.M., B.A. Acting - Distinction).