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Patricia Ryan Madson is an American actress, author and educator with a career in higher education at Stanford University who developed a curriculum for the study of improvisation as a philosophy of living. Her book, Improv Wisdom: Don’t Prepare, Just Show Up, New York, Bell Tower/Random House, 2005, has been translated into nine languages. The book has been used worldwide as a textbook and reference.

Life and work
Patricia grew up in the urban South and attended Westhampton College of the University of Richmond, where she majored in Philosophy. A passion for drama led her to play leading roles in two of the Southern Outdoor Dramas, “Unto these Hills” and “The Lost Colony.” Her graduate work was as an actress with the Hilberry Classic Theatre in Detroit. Patricia was a leading actress during the summers with the Colorado Shakespeare Festival and the Nebraska Repertory Theater in Lincoln, NE, during the 1970s.

Patricia began her university teaching career as an Assistant Professor of Drama at Denison University in Granville, Ohio, in 1969. In 1976 she took a position at Pennsylvania State University acting, directing and teaching Voice for the Actor, where she built upon her intensive vocal training with Professor Arthur Lessac.

In 1977 Stanford University offered her the position of leading the undergraduate Acting program. She founded the Stanford Improvisors in 1991 and launched an academic program to study improvisation at the university. In 1998 she won the prestigious Lloyd W. Dinkelspiel Award for Outstanding Innovation in Undergraduate Education.

Her tenure at Stanford University teaching undergraduates lasted from 1977-2005. Now a Stanford University Emerita, she teaches beginning and advanced-level improvisation courses for adults through Stanford’s Continuing Studies Program. She was also the founding director of the Stanford Improv Summer Stock (1993 and 1994) featuring Keith Johnstone as a guest.

Patricia's two decades of teaching improvisation at Stanford spawned a career as a consultant in business, philanthropic and educational groups. She founded “The Creativity Initiative,” an alliance of Stanford faculty who believed creativity could be taught. Her book, Improv Wisdom: Don't Prepare, Just Show Up, published in nine languages, plus a Braille edition in Chinese, is used as a textbook in such programs as the Stanford Department of Theater & Performance studies (TAPS) and the Graduate School of Business, Berkeley Haas, Northwestern University School of Design, the Clinical Psychology Program at the University of Oxford, and the Psychology Department at the University of Plymouth.

Patricia’s approach to improvisation as a lifeway was influenced by her years of study and travel in Asia. She studied Japanese psychology with the anthropologist David K. Reynolds, who developed the Constructive Living system. She also served as an American Coordinator for the Oomoto School of Traditional Japanese Arts in Kameoka, Japan. She was a student of ChungLiang Al Huang, practicing Tai Chi, and she spent time studying and practicing Naikan at Senkobo, Japan.