Children’s Theatre Company (CTC) is proud to launch The CTC Lab, a new initiative that extends the organization’s mission to educate, challenge and inspire to build essential life skills beyond the classroom and stage. For decades, CTC has helped young people develop confidence, empathy, and communication through the practice of theatre. The CTC Lab brings those same powerful tools to professionals and organizations seeking stronger collaboration, clearer communication, and more human centered leadership.
Through interactive workshops participants actively practice skills such as listening, adaptability, storytelling, and teamwork. By creating space for reflection, experimentation, and shared experience, The CTC Lab demonstrates how the core practices of theatre can strengthen relationships and transform how people work together.
“Theatre has always been about more than performance,” said Ann Joseph-Douglas, Director of Education at CTC. “At its heart, it is about connection, empathy, and understanding others. The CTC Lab allows us to share those values in a new way, helping people bring greater clarity, creativity, and collaboration into their everyday work.”
The CTC Lab was piloted in 2025 with Deloitte and 3M, with positive results and feedback:
“SO FUN. It was a nice ice breaker and way to engage each other and get out of our seats for a little bit.”
“Was interesting and fun. The acting bit (role playing potential work situations) was really good, especially the dialogue by the team around it.”
“Very engaging! Fun!”
“Thoroughly enjoyed it as a team building activity. Lessons learned from activities were reminders of fundamental communication skills. No dislikes.”
“Got us out of our comfort zones.”
About The CTC Lab
Performance, communication, and teamwork in practice
The CTC Lab brings practical, human-centered skill building into the workplace. Our workshops turn everyday workplace challenges – communication, collaboration and leadership into opportunities for practice, reflection and growth.
Each workshop blends instruction, guided activities and applied practice in a highly engaging format.
- 60–90-minute workshops for focused skill-building
- Half-day or full-day programs for deeper learning and team development
- Multi-day residencies for organizations seeking lasting impact
The CTC Lab facilitators guide participants through a balance of instruction, interactive exercises, and applied practice.
You’ll move, laugh, learn and leave with practical tools to take back to your work
Communication Lab
Navigating Difficult Conversations
Build practical skills for handling conversations with clarity, empathy, and confidence.
Professional Presence Lab
Practical Presentation and Communication Skills
Strengthen your ability to communicate ideas clearly and confidently in any professional setting.
Participants build skills in presence, storytelling and audience awareness to improve how they share information in meetings, pitches and presentations.
Adaptive Teams Lab
In today’s fast-paced, ever-changing work environment, teams must respond quickly, think creatively, and support one another in real time.
This highly interactive workshop builds adaptability, trust, and creative problem-solving, the foundations for effective collaboration.
Perfect For:
Teams in sales, marketing, client relations, or project management who rely on teamwork and responsiveness.
Children’s Theatre Company (CTC) is the nation’s largest and most acclaimed theatre for young people and serves a multigenerational audience. It creates theatre experiences that educate, challenge, and inspire more than 200,000 people annually. CTC is the only theatre focused on young audiences to win the Special Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre and is the only theatre in Minnesota to receive three Tony nominations (for its production of A Year With Frog and Toad). CTC is committed to creating world-class productions at the highest level and to developing new works, more than 200 to date, dramatically changing the canon of work for young audiences.
CTC is the most significant provider of theatre education opportunities in the region. Every year, thousands of children experience theatre for the first time at CTC. Our student matinees and education programs demonstrably benefit the community, from the intergenerational conversations sparked by our world premieres, to the sequential skill-building that happens in our Theatre Arts Training, to the pre-K focus of our Early Childhood Initiative. ACT One is CTC’s comprehensive platform for access, diversity, and inclusion in our audiences, programs, staff, and board that strives to ensure the theatre is a home for all people, all families, reflective of our community. childrenstheatre.org
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