I want to make others laugh. However, I was skeptical about how some exercises were supposed to make me funnier on The Tonight Show, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon or before an unforgiving NYC comedy club crowd? Well, I didn’t know the answer to these questions before working with Shane-Ann or before going on to appear over 50 times on Late Night TV and hundreds of times at comedy clubs and theaters, with her tools in my mouth and mind. It didn’t make sense to me that her work would help me to be better at being funny – but it did.
Shane-Ann’s work changed my life. Firstly, when an actor gets a script to work on, they’re flooded with tons of nervous energy. They want to work on it but they may not know how. I just ended up spilling my excited energy out into space and making little to no progress toward clarity. With Shane-Ann’s stockpile of tools, once learned, you will never squander your preparatory time or energy again. That nervous energy, which aspires toward greatness, needs a channel and a focus so that your work will move toward clarity, precision and illumination. She’s the real deal. And she’s funny!
Trust her with your creative life. Additionally, her work didn’t just help me with the words written by others, it helped me deliver my own writing (jokes, solo shows) better. I can take really bad text (never mine, always others!) and make it look like human life. She taught me to mine the text and to surface with diamonds. If words and communication are your thing, Shane-Ann will “get” you for she, like you, is an artist. Verbally, she was the Yoda to my Luke. Wax on, Shane-Ann!” – Dion Flynn
Dion Flynn’s Credits
TV: Late Night with Jimmy Fallon (portraying Barack Obama), “Down Dog”
Dion Flynn official website and videos
Movies: “Giving Up”, “The Bateman Lectures on Depression”, “You, Your Brain and You”
Theater: Changing Verbal Jazz (with Josh Radnor of “How I met your Mother”)
Voiceovers and Commercials: Sprint, Verizon, Virgin Mobile
Dion Flynn performs stand-up and improv in New York City.