Our team
All our trainers walk the walk, doing impossible things on and off stage all the time.
Max Dickins
Max Dickins started his career as a radio presenter for Absolute Radio, where he was nominated for a prestigious Sony Radio Award. He then turned to stand-up, performing thousands of gigs on the comedy circuit and creating three full length solo shows for the Edinburgh fringe festival. Including ‘My Groupon Adventure,’ which was a sell-out at the Pleasance in 2014. His first book, ‘My Groupon Adventure’, inspired by that show, was published in June 2016.
Max is also a critically acclaimed playwright. His first play ‘The Trunk’ was named by Theatre Weekly as one of their top ten theatre shows of 2016. His 2017 show ‘The Man on the Moor’ enjoyed a sell-out run at the Underbelly before touring nationally. Kin, his third play, has recently been published by Samuel French.
As an actor and writer he has a myriad of TV and radio credits on both sides of the Atlantic, working with BBC2, E4 and Sky1 amongst others. He’s currently proud to be the presenter of ‘Voom Room‘ (Sundog Pictures), featuring news, gossip and great guests from the ViginMedia Business Voom competition. (Think Dragon’s Den, but with Sir Richard Branson).
Steve Roe
Steve Roe is the co-founder of Hoopla and has been performing and teaching improv for over twelve years. He teaches improvisation full-time five days a week in London and also tours the UK and Europe with public workshops. In 2010 Steve founded London’s first improvised comedy club, and in 2012 this was recommended as the best place to see improvised comedy in London by The Daily Telegraph, Time Out and many more.
Before setting up Hoopla Steve worked as a Management Consultant at Accenture, where he was a Consultant in their Communications & High Tech Division. He also has worked in television, with five years working at channels including ITV, The History Channel, Pioneer, Prospect Pictures, Lion, BBC 2 and Channel 4.
“Max and Steve’s session was brilliant. Witty, absorbing and great fun. They offer an amazing insight into how we can all use the skills of our favourite comedians to explore greater depths of creativity and uncover the big ideas upon which our business thrives. Several weeks have gone by and we’re still talking (and laughing!) about it.”
We have a great team of trainers who are all professional performers too.
Our core trainers include:
Maria Peters
Maria Peters is storytelling and personal impact trainer who has worked with corporate clients all over the work for than 15 years. In her other life, Maria is also an improvisation veteran. Performing & studying improv for nearly 10 years. Along the way she has learned from world-renowned improv schools such as Chicago’s Second City, iO and New York’s Upright Citizens Brigade. Her insights from this world allow her to help leaders communicate with spontaneity, authenticity and confidence. So that they may connect with any audience.
Katy Schutte
Katy works with critically acclaimed and award-winning improvisational comedy companies Second City, Spark Creative, The Maydays and Hoopla. Her clients are many and include Facebook, Google and IBM; where she delivers training and performances for the corporate and public sector. Katy is a Funny Women Finalist and has delivered bespoke creativity, team-building and presentation training for corporate clients and TED speakers.
Adam Rojko
Adam Rojko Vega is a classically trained actor, writer and director from Nottingham. He recently played the male lead in Carmen the Gypsy at The Arcola and played dual roles in Shebeen at the Nottingham Playhouse and Theatre Royal Stratford. He is also a founding member of one of London’s best improv teams: The Committee. In the professional development world, Adam has run corporate sessions with companies such as Expedia, Jaguar Land Rover, EE, and Total Media.