Teaching

As a professional educator for 30 years, teaching is in her blood. Allison started as a middle school history and drama teacher in New Mexico, then co-founded an educational theatre company in Austin that served schools and communities across Texas. Theatre Action Project (now Creative Action) is in its 25th year. Then a move to Michigan to be a Theatre Professor and for over a decade, a professor of Creative Arts Education at Western Michigan University, where she teaches teachers how to teach using the arts. She also teaches in WMU’s Haworth College of Business’ MBA program, a 14-week course she’s designed in Storytelling for Organizations.

Allison offers workshops, retreats, residencies, and coaching in the areas of storytelling, arts integration, songwriting, and creativity. She’s worked with kids in schools, offered teacher professional development, designed workshops for organizations, communities, and businesses. AND she loves to coach one on one to help get the story just right, or create a cohesive arc to a presentation.

*To learn about Business Storytelling go to the Storytelling in Organizations page

WORKSHOPS

  • Allison offers workshops ranging from one-hour to two days.
  • Topics include the art of storytelling, songwriting, creativity, drama
  • Customized to your specific needs
  • For adults: workshops in personal narrative storytelling (“Finding, crafting & performing your stories”) & creativity for groups, organizations, communities, senior citizens, festivals
  • For teachers & students: workshops in storytelling (personal narrative, historical…), songwriting, and drama in the classroom. 60 min. sessions to residencies or courses.

RETREAT

  • Allison loves to dive in and play. A day-long or weekend retreat is the perfect way to stay in the story and explore. Allison has offered retreats in creativity, storytelling, and collaborative personal life coaching/storytelling. If you would like Allison to lead a retreat for you or your group, contact booking@allisondowney.com.

COACHING

Let’s talk – one on one.

  • Individualized coaching sessions tailored to your specific needs: explore a story, strengthen skills in story crafting & delivery for performance, writing or presentation
  • From single sessions to packages with multiple sessions
  • Face-to-face, telephone & videoconferencing coaching