Tane Danger

Tane Danger is on a mission to make good things fun. He’s a professional improv comedian with a master’s in public policy. He is an interviewer, event host, media personality, and keynote speaker.

 

Tane’s the co-founder of Danger Boat Productions and host of its nationally renowned civics-inspired improv comedy show, The Theater of Public Policy. At each show, he interviews newsmakers, policy-wonks, and big thinkers on issues ranging from education policy to the farm bill. Then the show’s cast of improvisers take everything that’s been said and turns it into entirely unscripted improv comedy theater. The result is what the Star Tribune described as “C-SPAN invaded by the cast of SNL.” 

 

Tane designed and teaches a class called Serious Play for the Mayo Clinic Center for Humanities in Medicine.  The class uses improv to teach students new ways to be empathetic, collaborative, and caring with patients and colleagues. 

 

Tane also created and taught a class for the University of Minnesota School of Design called “Improvisation for Design.” The class explores how the tools improvisers use can help anyone be more creative, communicative, and cooperative. 

 

In workshops and keynote talks, Tane uses his background in improv comedy to help folks practice communication, collaboration, and creativity differently. He’s taught improv for better communication to everyone from healthcare executives to Lutheran bishops. 

 

He is a regular contributor to Almanac, the weekly public affairs program on Twin Cities Public Television. He is also a go-to moderator for public events and discussions for everyone from the Minneapolis Federal Reserve to the University of Minnesota. In 2023, he moderated a widely covered unscripted interview with former U.S. Representative Liz Cheney for the UofM. 

 

Tane is also well known as “the bus guy!” In 2019 Tane began working with Minnesota’s Metro Transit on a web series called, “Hey! Where Does This Bus Go?” In each episode, Tane rides a local bus route from start to finish, noting landmarks along the way and chatting with riders. The series demystifies each bus route and changes people’s perception of who rides the bus.

 

From 2020-2024, Tane served as director and eventually moderator of the Westminster Town Hall Forum, the Upper Midwest’s largest national speaker series. In that role he interviewed legendary journalists Michele Norris and Kara Swisher, comedian Nancy Giles, LGBTQ-rights activist Raquel Willis and economics and China expert Dr. Keyu Jin.  

 

In 2014, Tane won a fellowship from the St. Paul-based Bush Foundation. The Bush Fellowship helped Tane earn a Master’s of Public Policy from the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs. In a self-designed concentration, Tane looked at how improv theater could inform and improve politics and public policy. 

 

In addition to being on stage and in front of the camera himself, he regularly produces events for both nonprofit and corporate clients. Tane is a trustee of his undergraduate alma mater, Gustavus Adolphus College.