About - Fratelli Bologna

Fratelli Bologna

Innovative Business Theatre

Who We Are

The Fratelli Bologna team are experts in the front lines of improvisational theatre, corporate training, university teaching and working with major companies. We think of ourselves as engagement engineers because it all starts with engagement.

Keynote success must engage your audience and prepare them for the meeting or conference. Get it right and your golden.

Training success requires engagement to shift mindset, increase knowledge and build skills.

Coaching success requires engagement to go deeper to remove self-placed obstacles and build actions plans.

Fratelli Bologna (Fra-TELL-ee Bow-LOAN-ya)

Italian for "Bologna Brothers"

The Fratelli Bologna Team

The name Fratelli Bologna is Italian and means the ‘Brothers from Bologna’. When we started as a theatre company we created and performed a style of Italian theatre called Commedia del Arte. Our theatre style grew to include immersive environmental shows that engaged the audience on many levels.

Businesses soon asked us to bring our unique style of theatre to conferences and programs. And, it leads us to this moment…

Since those days the family has grown to include the best people we know to deliver great tradeshow presentations, training and coaching.

Meet the Team

William Hall

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William Hall has presented at numerous events for many large companies and has extensive experience in attracting an audience, engaging them and presenting business messages. Because he is adept at reading and interacting with an audience, he’s the perfect choice as Host.

William is a communications consultant and instructional designer. He teaches at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He teaches Design Thinking to educators and corporations with the Lime Design Group which was formed from the Stanford d.School.

William founded one of the largest improvisational theaters in America — BATS Improv Theatre and Training Center in San Francisco. He continues to perform and teach at BATS. His book of improviation games remains a “must have” book for performers and teachers around the world.

See a video of William here:

https://youtu.be/5W8FsJOmxmE

He has developed and delivered agility and creativity workshops for numerous corporations worldwide, including Kaiser, Salesforce, Disneyland, Google, Bank of America, Shell and Charles Schwab.

Mary Dilts

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Mary Dilts has worked in the Bay Area and globally as a spokesperson, trainer, producer and professional actor. She has represented Fortune 500 companies as well as high-tech startups in all forms of media. Her extensive list of clients includes Hewlett Packard, Cisco Systems, Apple Computer, Intel, Genentech and NASA.

As an actor, Mary has appeared in numerous films, TV dramas and commercials. She has also hosted travel, cooking and QVC shows. Her work as a voiceover actress includes narration and voicemail systems to video games and text-to-speech systems.

Mary recently launched BRAVE Speak (a program for vocal development in business), and currently directs audiobook recordings for Silicon Valley authors.

See a video of Mary here:

Mary has presented for decades in tradeshows around the world including NRF, NAR, RSNA, IBC, NAB, Siggraph, CSC, DAC and CES, among others.

Carla Hartly

Carla Hatley

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Ben Johnson has performed as a professional actor, improviser, and physical comedian in over ninety cities across the United States and in ten countries around the world. His performing credits include work for the American Conservatory Theater, BATS Improv, Cirque du Soleil, and many others.

Ben earned his master’s degree in teaching from Brown University. He has over fifteen years of experience working as an educator and trainer in a variety of contexts, including the facilitation of workshops for business professionals and professional development for schools, districts, and other educational organizations.

See a video of Ben here:

Ben has worked with a wide range of corporate clients such as; Oracle, Google, Pixar, Black Rock, facilitating engaging workshops and portraying characters in interactive live-action training scenarios. Whether in a small setting of ten participants or a large-scale training with hundreds of employees, Ben has helped teams from some of today's most successful, innovative businesses to develop new and valuable skills and habits of mind. Throughout, he brings the principles of improvisation to bear on the key challenges facing 21st-century organizations: collaboration, innovation, and adaptation.

Tom Greensmith

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Tom Greensmith is a writer/editor/creative director who specializes in conversational English. While he has written annual reports and sales/marketing copy for Fortune 200 companies, he is best known for projects that are "heard" and not "read." These include executive speeches, trade show presentations and industrial theater. He especially enjoys writing material that is light in tone and can veer into the area of corporate comedy when required. Tom has also written two children's books: Franky Flys Away From Home and The Dragonfly Sisters Go To Town.

What Our Clients Say

I’ve done a lot of business theater and it can be tricky to mix inside information and humor….you and your team did the research and delivered a great show. You delivered on my high expectations.

Amy Fay

Blue Shield

In 20 years of working with Fratelli Bologna, the only complaint I ever get is from other exhibitors, because all the attendees are in our booth.

Beth Shafer

Trade show exhibit and event producer for HP

You were a great gift to the principals and to the year ahead. They appreciated the process, the content, and above all the example of a skillful, fun, memorable and deeply committed teacher.

Grace Hoagland

Director of Leadership Programs
Stanford University School of Education

Our History

From Street Theatre to Business Theatre

We started writing our own theatre for the Northern California Renaissance Faire in the style of Commedia dell’arte (masked physical comedy). From there we appeared in major motion picture, trained and performed at Disneyland, taught improvisation, innovation, and storytelling to Silicon Valley and spoke about the future of organizations at the World Economic Forum in Davos Switzerland.

Our personnel has changed over the years but our commitment to engaging audiences remains our core driving principle.

Creating a group without a role model. Our journey continues to evolve as markets and media change. We thrive in creating custom compelling keynotes, trainings and coaching processes.

Fratelli Bologna

Innovative Business Theatre

Who We Are

Fratelli Bologna (Fra-TELL-ee Bow-LOAN-ya)

Meet the Team

William Hall

Mary Dilts

Carla Hatley

Tom Greensmith

What Our Clients Say

Our History

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