About Mary
Wait, improv can do all THAT?
After witnessing firsthand the phenomenal benefits of improv, not just on the stage but in the classroom and beyond, Mary DeMichele set out on a mission to spread the word about the unexpected ways one simple technique can impact lives.
Mary is a coach, consultant, and improviser with over 25 years of experience in educational, clinical and professional settings.
Her career began in the classroom, teaching social studies in an award-winning urban school. She went on to found the school’s performing arts program, helping to establish drama and improv as key components to students’ academic success.
Improv did not come naturally for Mary. She describes her first encounters with the practice as if she were peeling off layers of an onion — each week feeling more free to express herself. Throughout her career, she has focused on ways to make improv more accessible, less overwhelming, and more FUN for everyone. Her experience in education and, later, in the field of mental health, combined with her life as a professional instructor, led her to some incredible, ground-breaking discoveries about the true benefits of improv.
In 2021 Mary co-authored the first neurobiological study of its kind, looking at how improv impacts the brain of adolescents with trauma.
The article “Short-Form, Comedy Improv Affects the Functional Connectivity in the Brain of Adolescents with Complex Developmental Trauma as Measured by qEEG” appears in the peer-reviewed journal, NeuroRegulation. Explore the evidence.
Now, with scientific evidence to support what she has observed all along, Mary is even more fired up to spread the word about the transformative power of improv.
Mary’s signature method is One Rule Improv, a research-based, trauma-informed approach to learning, teaching, and applying improv in a way that is accessible, effective, and easy.
Mary DeMichele is simply the top expert in the country on using improv in the classroom to achieve instructional goals such as increased writing volume and fluency. In her dynamic workshops, she models a step-by-step approach that teachers can start using immediately. She takes away all the angst and fear that the word ‘improv’ sometimes inspires and replaces it with sheer joy.
WILLY WOOD, EDUCATIONAL CONSULTANT
One Rule Improv has been used in a variety of settings, including classrooms, trauma-informed schools, outpatient programs, foster care group homes, residential treatment centers, and corporations of varying sizes. The teachers, clinicians, CEOs, leaders, and participants in Mary’s sessions are consistently blown away with how simple, beneficial, and comfortable they feel after trying their hand at the One Rule of Improv as created by Mary.
Her goal is not to simply leave them with great memories, however. She equips and empowers others to lead their own One Rule Improv sessions, so they can continue to reap the benefits and share the experience with more people.
Mary holds a Bachelor of Arts from Rutgers University and a Master of Social Science from Syracuse University. She has completed extensive training in the fields of instructional design, adolescent trauma, cognitive behavioral psychology, and more.
She is the author of the books One Rule Improv: The Fast, Easy, No Fear Approach to Teaching, Learning and Applying Improv, and Improv ’n Ink: Overcoming “I Don’t Know What to Write!” as well as several journal articles.
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