Dr. Jonathan Feinstein, a professor at Yale University, studies the developmental paths of creative individuals, including entrepreneurs, inventors, artists and scientists. His book Creativity in Large-Scale Contexts was published in 2023. He is also the author of The Nature of Creative Development (2006). His current work focuses on models of creative engagement, centering on guidance, learning, opportunities, and paths of development. What do we choose to learn and explore as we develop our creative interests and passions? What opportunities arise, which projects do we pursue? His approach emphasizes the rich diverse patterns of development, unfolding over a few years or a lifetime.

On top of all this, he is an expert in the field of tax compliance and the analysis of audit and detection processes. At Yale, he teaches core statistics and runs the math book camp.

For more information:

• Dr. Feinstein’s web site at Yale University
• Creativity in Large-Scale Contexts: Guiding Creative Engagement and Exploration, from Stanford University Press.
• The Nature of Creative Development, from Stanford University Press.

Music by license from SoundStripe:

• "Uptown Lovers Instrumental" by AFTERNOONZ
• "Miss Missy" by AFTERNOONZ
• "What's the Big Deal" by Ryan Saranich

Copyright (c) 2024 Keith Sawyer

Everyone who works in television and movie comedy knows Charna Halpern. She’s trained thousands of actors, writers, and producers at her Chicago theater, founded in 1981, called the iO theater. In this episode, Charna tells personal and funny stories about actors from Chris Farley and Neil Flynn to Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. Along with actor and director Del Close, Charna invented modern improvisational theater in the 1980s. The art form known as long form improvisation—a 20 or 30-minute fully improvised one-act play—was developed at the iO theater, and is still found on their stage at seven nights a week at 1501 N. Kingsbury Street in Chicago.

Charna is one of the best-known and best-loved people in comedy because she developed a system for training actors how to improvise together. Her training takes a full year and it’s so effective that TV producers, like Lorne Michaels, regularly visit iO theater to audition the actors who’ve graduated from the program. Sometimes on Saturday Night Live, every actor was once at the iO theater.

Charna created a family, a community, that she lovingly calls “my people.” Here are just a few of the famous actors and writers who we talk about in this episode (in order of mention): Lorne Michaels; Cecily Strong; Tina Fey; Amy Poehler; Mike Myers; Vanessa Bayer; Adam McKay; Brian Stack; Stephen Colbert; David Koechner; Rachel Dratch; Chris Farley; Sarah Silverman; Stephanie Ware; Neil Flynn; Larry David; Seth Myers; John Lutz; Matt Walsh; Tim Meadows. She even tells a story about how she let Adam McKay sleep on her couch before he was famous because he couldn’t afford to stay in Chicago.

When I was doing my research on improvisation in the early 1990s, the theater was called “Improv Olympic” and only later renamed “iO.” Don’t tell anyone I said that.

For more information:

• iO theater. https://ioimprov.com/
• Truth in Comedy. Charna Halpern, Del Close, Kim Howard Johnson.
• Art by Committee. Charna Halpern.

Music by license from SoundStripe:

• "Uptown Lovers Instrumental" by AFTERNOONZ
• "Miss Missy" by AFTERNOONZ
• "What's the Big Deal" by Ryan Saranich

Copyright (c) 2025 Keith Sawyer

Dr. Mark Runco is a professor and is the Director of Creativity Research and Programming at Southern Oregon University. Over 35 years ago, he founded an influential scientific journal called The Creativity Research Journal and he was the editor of that journal until 2020. He’s published books that are widely read by creativity researchers such as his college textbook, Creativity: Research, Development, and Practice (three editions), The Creativity Research Handbook (1997, 2011, 2012), and the very first Encyclopedia of Creativity in 1999. He’s known for his studies of core topics in creativity research including problem finding, assessment, and divergent thinking. His recent writings are critical of the widespread claim that Gen AI is creative. He argues that creativity is unique to humans, and we’re going to talk about that today.

Mark developed and still teaches seminars on creativity, including "Creativity: What It Is and What It Is Not," "The Assessment of Creativity," "Creative Cognition," and "Social Contexts for Creativity." He is past president of Division 10 (Psychology, Art, Creativity, and Aesthetics) of the American Psychological Association. Episodes 23 and 24 of this podcast are about the annual conference of Division 10.

Additional information:

Mark Runco’s web site

First edition of Encyclopedia of Creativity, 1999 (with Steven Pritzer)

Second edition, 2011 (with Steven Pritzker)

Creativity: Research, Development, and Practice (third edition, 2023)

The Creativity Research Handbook (third edition, 2012)

Music by license from SoundStripe:

"Uptown Lovers Instrumental" by AFTERNOONZ

"Miss Missy" by AFTERNOONZ

"What's the Big Deal" by Ryan Saranich

Copyright (c) 2025 Keith Sawyer