Beyond Graduation: How the Arts Shape Careers with Tony DeRosa & Anna Garcia
In this special Alumni Edition of Creative Currents, host Mark Clague sits down with two University of Michigan alumni who have built careers rooted in creativity, collaboration, and saying "yes" to the unexpected.
Tony DeRosa, co-founder of Ann Arbor's Hear.Say Brewing, shares how a career in leadership development at Google led him back to Michigan to create a brewery where craft beer, improv comedy, and community come together. Actor and comedian Anna Garcia reflects on her journey from U-M to television, film, and the national improv scene, including roles in Fly Me to the Moon, Hacks, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Party Down, and Die Hart.
Together, Tony and Anna explore how the arts continue to shape their work long after graduation—from building confidence and embracing uncertainty to strengthening communication, leading teams, creating community, and forging unconventional career paths. Whether you're pursuing the arts professionally or simply looking to bring more creativity into your life, this conversation is a reminder that the skills developed through artistic practice extend far beyond the stage and well beyond your undergraduate experience.
This episode launches Creative Currents: Alumni Edition, a special two-part miniseries that previews a larger October series released during the Michigan Arts Festival, spotlighting alumni, entrepreneurs, comedians, and creative changemakers. Together, these conversations explore one central question: You studied the arts at Michigan—now what?
In this episode:
Why improv is about much more than comedy
How creativity fuels leadership, entrepreneurship, and creative innovation
Building community through collaboration and shared experiences
Navigating nonlinear careers and embracing unexpected opportunities
Advice for current students on taking creative risks after graduation
The launch of the inaugural Yes, Ann Improv Festival
Production Note: Creative Currents is produced by Jessica Jenks and edited by Brian Lillie.
Season 5, Episode 1
00:22:39
Listen on:
*Production Note: Creative Currents is produced by Jessica Jenks and edited by Brian Lillie.
Transcript
Mark Clague: 00:06
Welcome to Creative Currents, a Michigan Arts podcast where we explore the power of collaborative creativity and how the arts spark meaningful conversation. I'm your host, Mark Clague, and today we're joined by University of Michigan alum and Ann Arbor entrepreneur Tony DeRosa. Tony is the co-founder of Hear.Say Brewing, an Ann Arbor brewery that blends craft beer with improv comedy. After a career at Google in California, focused on leadership development, Tony returned to Ann Arbor with a vision to create a space where creativity, connection, and joy come together. Hear.Say fosters collaboration, creative communication, and belonging through performances, classes, and corporate workshops. Also joining us today is actor, comedian, and University of Michigan alumna Anna Garcia. Anna is best known for her breakout role in the Apple TV Plus film Fly Me to the Moon and has appeared on shows including Hacks, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Party Down, and Die Hart. A longtime improviser and performer, she currently appears on several popular dropout comedy series and is headlining the inaugural Yes, Ann Improv Festival here in Ann Arbor. Tony, welcome to Creative Currents. Thank you so much for having me. Oh, this is awesome. So you graduated from the Ross School of Business.
Tony DeRosa: 01:23
Yeah, so I did a part-time MBA, which meant I took evening classes while still working full-time at Google. Took a very scenic route, I like to say, through my uh MBA. So I started in 2014. Uh, I remember my very first class being asked for like, you know, what was what's a goal you have long term? And I think it was to open a brewery. The mid-2010s were kind of the era where you could just roll open a garage door, put six pretty mediocre beers on draft, and just start printing money. So that was a that was a pretty good era for beer. It was kind of the peak of interest. Definitely a time of explosive growth.
Mark Clague: 01:55
Beer and improv comedy. Like, how did you think to put that together?
Tony DeRosa: 01:59
Yeah, so I would be remiss to not say there was a business before mine in town that had those two aspects of it. It was called Pointless Brewery. And and uh so Pointless was a business that did combine the craft beer and the improv side. That's where I started taking classes. It was actually to de-stress while doing the evening MBA at the time.
Mark Clague: 02:16
I started taking classes and I had you ever done it before, or that was the first time?
Tony DeRosa: 02:19
I had not. My earliest comedy memory was in fourth grade. You could research a career, and I researched stand-up comedian. And I remember it was uh you were supposed to give like, what's the salary range for this role? And I was like, well, it's anywhere from zero to ten million dollars if you're Jerry Seinfeld. Um, so I I had a loose interest since the fourth grade in the world of comedy. But uh yeah, it wasn't until 2016 where I really took a class and I just fell in love with it. It was a weird, like I was de-stressing before my wedding, took a semester off from the part-time MBA, and I was kind of like, I'm just gonna do this thing. It's something I've wanted to explore. And then I just kind of was like jump in the deep end, started, you know, putting shows together, teaching workshops at Google, and uh and just yeah, was all in at that point.
Mark Clague: 03:01
That's great. I mean, one of our frequent topics on the podcast is about sort of the arts and mental health and how actually being involved in the arts is is a healthy behavior. That's actually something that helps you figure out who you are, helps you relate to other people, connect, and sort of manage your own life. And it sounds like you found that to be true.
Tony DeRosa: 03:17
There's a book that was really impactful to me called Bowling Alone that just talks about bowling participation was going up, but bowling league participation was going down. And it was kind of that idea of people are doing activities, but but it's kind of civic engagement and community. There's some evidence that maybe people aren't doing things in groups as much as they had been. And uh improv is best done in a group because the whole you know framework is you're we're gonna build something, you know, if the two of us or we added a few people, if the you know, five of us were to do a show, we're gonna build something together that no one person could have produced on their own. And just that being kind of joyful and creative with other people becomes really meaningful. You form great friendships through that. And uh, I think that's a wonderful thing. There's so many people that now go beyond comedy. They're playing board games together. Many of our groups, you know, will do that at home or at the brewery. You know, they're lifelong friendships. Some people even start dating each other. Have you had a wedding at Hear.Say? We have. We'd had one uh last summer. So we're very open to weddings. Was it a wedding of a couple that met at the brewery? They did not. No, it's it was friends of ours.
Mark Clague: 04:24
Um there's something to aspire to yet.
Tony DeRosa: 04:26
It's something to aspire to, yeah. That would be the dream. And we've done some fun events, you know, in improv itself. A lot of the same, you know, some people sign up. It's it's maybe not the core reason, but in the back of their head, you're looking to meet people, and a lot of that friendships would be the baseline, but you know, you know, you never know. And so that's a great aspect of it. And you really see people's creativity get unlocked, and even some of the skills that help people in dating, which I had no sense that we would go in this direction. It's always, always fun. You know, some of the skills you built through doing improv in terms of just thinking on your feet, listening. Yeah, like honestly, professionally, um, in terms of friendships, in terms of romantic relationships, parenting, improv skills can be really beneficial. Um, because I think so often people are thinking ahead or you know, what comes next versus uh really, I think there's a huge overlap between improv and mindfulness, which starts with just how can I be present in the moment? Uh how can I listen to what because I can't yes and if I don't even hear what you said. Right. Uh, and then accept the reality, kind of um, you know, build on that as the more and side. But uh but yeah, that's the that's the core of it. And I think it's it's such a valuable mindset for people, and it has a lot, I think, a lot of benefits outside of just even the organic fun of just playing in class or in shows or yeah, I was gonna where I thought we were going this was not dating.
Mark Clague: 05:41
I thought we were going to business and management. Like, how did improv work into your business world?
Tony DeRosa: 05:46
Yeah. So uh, like I said, I started becoming like the free uh team building person at Google. So people would come to me for uh we're doing an event or we just kind of want to improve the morale of the team. And so I started offering these workshops, and people found, wow, it's so nice to, you know, to laugh together with a professional group, whether it's an arts-based group or not. I think improv can be very helpful for improving communication. Uh it's really good for breaking down uh hierarchy and some of those ingrained relationships, whether it's a new team working together or a team that has several years working together. Uh, it just puts everybody on the same playing field and it reduces cortisol, it gives you some experience, public speaking together in a less threatening way than just the everyday of presenting and high-stakes meetings and stakeholder relationships. I also think in terms of the actual day-to-day work, um being more open to ideas, you know, the the very classic example of you know, if you come with an idea, it feels bad if you're shot down. Like you say, hey, I've got a great way to get new customers. I'm like, no, we're not gonna do that. We try that, no, we're not doing that versus interesting, here's what I'm hearing you say, and how can I build on that idea? You know, that's the yes and approach.
Mark Clague: 06:58
So, for listeners who may not be familiar with improv, how do you explain what it is and what keeps you coming back to it?
Anna Garcia 07:05
Okay, what is improv? Improv is the art form of making things up on the spot. You can like sort of improvise in your daily life. Sort of like lying is sort of improvising, but I do it as a performance. The way you do it is just you make up scenes and characters on the spot. And I have been doing it since high school, and then I went to University of Michigan and did it all four years here. And I consider it like my fundamental training for being a person and being an actor and being a comedian. I love it so much because like I think we as adults sort of lose our sense of play. And I think that improv is like the most acceptable form of like sort of reconnecting with that part of yourself, and I think it's like a very joy-based um thing to do. And it's so silly and stupid, and like people shouldn't tap into that part of themselves more.
Mark Clague: 07:51
One of the core principles of improv is yes and what does that idea actually mean to you? And how is that shape the way you collaborate with other people, both on stage and off?
Anna Garcia 08:01
Yes, and it's like the golden rule of improv is that when your scene partner says something to you, you are saying yes and you are adding upon it. That doesn't mean you're literally saying yes, but it means what you said is true and I'm gonna play with what you said. It's sort of like you validate your scene partner and then you build something together. I think improv in general makes you a very good listener, but in order to agree with someone, you have to know what they've said. So yes and is really good for being flexible for listening. And then, you know, sometimes you'll start a scene, you're like, you pull open a can of soda, and you think you're at a ball game and you just like are drinking soda, and then someone will be like, Mom, hey, the fridge is out. And then it's like, well, okay, great, the fridge is out. Um, and so yes and teaches you to be like, you're not always right, and that there really is no right. It's like there's endless routes, and yes, and is like the the joy of it is finding it with other people.
Tony DeRosa: 08:53
There's a lot of these like principles or rules of improv that people talk about. A really big one is that mistakes are gifts. Um we love that kind of idea. You know, at what I often say is at work. Um, sometimes if somebody makes a mistake, we have a very serious meeting and we, you know, there's lots of follow-up, and then some like if we're running, you know, a power plant, we probably need to do that, but sometimes it's not that serious where we need to go in that direction. The idea in improv is if somebody makes a mistake, there's probably something really comedic that happens. So somebody might um, you know, use the wrong name for something, mispronounce a word, and suddenly it's like, well, you know, you said um Mick Burger King instead of Burger King. Well, now what does that mean? What do we do with that, right? And it could lead us down a pretty funny, uh, you know, potentially very funny path. So mistakes happen in improv. Um, since if we're performing for a live audience, we can't not like in sports, we can't call time out and have a have a conference. So we've got to just build the show. We're always kind of, you know, time is on stage is moving forward. We've got to use what happens. And if we can joyfully embrace things that might otherwise seem like a mistake, it gives us a lot of potential to just as a team to keep the train on the tracks and keep the show moving forward. In the business world, I think sometimes leaders might prepare for a big speech. There's maybe a team building or a big off site. And sometimes the energy of the team is not what you expect. Maybe they're worried about a reorganization of the team or some major change, and you've got this plan and suddenly it's not mirrored in what you know the team vibe is in response to that. So you can navigate having a solid plan, but kind of it's kind of like holding a strong opinion held lightly, I guess is the thing where you can be a leader who's flexible if in the moment it's not going the direction you expected. There's some real power in that. Sometimes I I see people just like, well, this is the plan. I'm just gonna power through. And then, of course, on the other side, if you're just winging everything, that's that's really not what improv teams generally do either. We're making up the dialogue, but we generally have, you know, the best shows are rehearsed and practiced and uh and people are building those that trust with each other, right? Um, so that's kind of I think the synthesis or the kind of the nexus of preparation and improvisation.
Mark Clague: 11:07
That's so fascinating, all the connections and the way that the artistic practice and and and life. I mean, I mean, so much of this applies to business, but I can also think like interpersonal relationships, like listening and responding and help other people succeed. I guess that's what I see about like for my work as a leader and the yes and a lot of it's about you know trying to see the potential in others and helping them be the best they can be, because it helps the team, it helps the organization meet its goals.
Tony DeRosa: 11:31
Yeah, that's so true. I think uh, you know, there's a lot of potential for leaders to kind of have that mindset of how do I build up what people are doing, right? And yes, the work can get busy, can get stressful. And so if we can check that at times, I think we can uh be even more effective in supporting people.
Mark Clague: 11:49
So it's interesting you said you took like the scenic tour to your career. I think so many students today are feeling this pressure that they've got to have this linear approach. Improv is all about embracing uncertainty and responding in the moment to various possibilities. What would you say to students about the value of taking risks, staying curious, and being open to the unexpected?
Tony DeRosa: 12:08
When you go from the structure of academics, which you maybe have experienced from you know kindergarten or pre-kindergarten all the way through, you know, graduating uh from college to maybe being a master's student, you've kind of been on a you know, kind of train tracks other people have laid for you, and suddenly you have all these options and it can be it can become very tempting to compare yourself to other people versus to I think do that work to examine what is really important to you in your life. And and obviously there's considerations like what can I get paid for? What can I how can I make a living and how can I support myself and possibly a family if somebody's looking that way? Uh, what am I passionate about and what do I care? What impact do I want to have? One of the pieces that was really impactful to me, there's a book called Um Designing Your Life, and there's a follow-up called Designing Your Work Life. And there's a concept in that book called prototyping, uh, which kind of is what it sounds like. The whole idea is if you're thinking about major life or career changes, it's the idea of how can you kind of test drive that in a maybe a safe way. So the classic example from that would be if I thought that my job, my life should be selling candles, I may not just rent a shop in Carry Town and for a high rent and just say, we that's Tony's candles. Here we go, we're open. What I might do instead is start making these candles, getting feedback from my friends and family. I might go to the farmer's market and sell them there. I think there can be a similar approach in the arts. I mean, I I know many people in our community that even if they take a break from uh, you know, more like performance art and theater, they will sometimes come back to that after years. It's it's always there for you, I think, on some level. And if the opportunity doesn't seem available, there's often ways for people to create that opportunity. That's been very fun to see that people are in in my world. I've got you know stand-up comedians putting shows together, I've got sketch comedy um folks putting shows together, I've got musicians looking to do things like open mics or jam sessions, um, because we are a venue for that as well. So I think that there's always room. I mean, sometimes there can be a reality of okay, is there enough here to forge a career? Perhaps not. And you've got to think about what it might feel like if you are juggling a job that's 40 to 50 hours a week. Do you have that bandwidth or time to maybe take something on above and beyond? What you hope is that if you're passionate about something, it it doesn't necessarily feel like work. I mean, I probably arguably my hours working, quote unquote, would be quite high if I were to look at it. But I enjoy a lot so much of what I do that it doesn't feel out of whack for me personally. Um, and you know, and and so for me, it was kind of uh my prototyping for my business, since it was both the beer and the improv side, it was teaching a lot of workshops and being a teacher and realizing, hey, I really like doing this work, I like working with students, uh, I like bringing this con these concepts to teams and sort of helping them. Yeah. On the beer side, I invested in a friend's brewery and kind of watched that open a few years before mine and kind of saw some of the roadblocks and hurdles you can sometimes encounter. There's a lot of uh you know, legal hurdles, there's timelines just to get open, and craft beer is changing a lot, and the direction that things are generally moving in is you've got to offer more than beer. We offer lots of wine and cocktails and NA drinks. And most breweries, whether they accept it or not, are now event planners because you really have to almost throw a party most days of the week to get people's attention and to get them to come in. Think about the experience at your facility versus roll open the garage door, we've got a good pint of beer, come drink it. You that some places that works, especially if you have kind of an entrenched and loyal following and all that. But we kind of forced growth through doing events. And so I I knew enough that I liked thinking that way with events, but I didn't just say, hey, I wonder if I would like beer and comedy. Let's sink a lot of money into this and kind of see what happens from there. It was test driving those pieces beforehand. Uh, and I think that that that's kind of the advice I would give to an undergrad is that there's lots of potential to stand up the things that you want to do. If you want to exhibit art that you've produced that's more physical media, whether it's you know paintings or art, like great. There are ways to get that into places. I think sometimes people they don't always realize like you can create the pathway yourself. Don't wait for somebody to kind of come to you and say, hey, I've got a coffee shop that doesn't have art on the wall. Would you want to put your art up there? Like go out there and create the opportunity for yourself if it's something you're really passionate about. And the signal that you're doing that is probably a sense that that's that's going to be a safer direction for you to move because you've already kind of proven that you're interested in that, uh, in that space.
Anna Garcia 16:45
I studied screen arts and cultures, is what it was called at the time. And I studied writing and directing sort of, but U of M is so amazing because there's 800,000 clubs. And so I got really locked into Midnight Book Club, which was the long form improv drew here. And so that was, I would say, just as formative as my major. It was a bunch of friends that cared way too much about the art form of comedy and what comedians were performing, and we would go to Chicago and iO And it really created this like nerd passion culture that I think carried over to the real world. But paired with my major where I learned to write and you you sort of learn how to force yourself to do things you don't necessarily want to do and direct. I mean, I through my major and through improvisational arts sort of did a thesis that told me, like, oh, I love writing for myself and directing and I love acting in my own projects. So I learned all of that at Michigan. I learned I love comedy. And then when I went to LA, I moved to LA shortly after. And yeah, I think like to pursue the arts, you have to be crazy. There's like you have to be of two minds. You have to be of the mind that you are going to succeed no matter what, and then you have to be of the mind of like, well, how am I gonna pay rent? So there's two worlds and both have to exist at the same time. The things that I have benefited most from, like that I took from Michigan with me, were I'm still very close with all my people that I went to Michigan with. I'm still doing shows with some people I did Midnight Book Club with, were going to like Sketchfest and you know, IOT Fest doing this like fun show my friend Riley Taggart wrote. He was a junior when I was a freshman in Midnight Book Club and keeping those people that you really connected with in those ways, like those people can definitely stay in your life. But I would say, in terms of creating your own path, Michigan's awesome because there's so much at your fingertips at your disposal. Sometimes in the real world you have to just seek it out slightly more. When I went to LA, I knew I wanted to continue doing improv. So I took classes at the local improv theater, which is called Upright Citizens Brigade. And then through there, you just meet people. And that's the best you can do, especially in at least film TV comedy. I think I got to where I am today is because I started doing indie improv and I made friends and made like the stupid videos, and at some point I made TikToks, and then through making TikToks, Sam Reich, who's the CEO of this company, Dropout, emailed me. And then now Dropouts like one of my jobs, and has been such a big proponent of my success as an improviser. And so it's putting yourself into the right community. Because I think in Michigan you can find your community pretty quick. I think it's making sure you put in the work to find the community of people and then building stuff with those people.
Mark Clague: 19:14
What have you got going on at Hear.Say? And like how could listeners to the podcast, students, staff, faculty, how can they take advantage of what's happening?
Tony DeRosa: 19:22
We are open six days a week. Generally, we offer about 40 events a month. So you can always check out our calendar since we do have a ton, uh, a ton to explore, both live music, trivia nights, uh bingo nights occasionally we do for nonprofits and love doing those. Usually six to eight uh live comedy events in a given week. We usually double up on Fridays and Saturdays. We typically have two shows for people to check out, uh, which is which is really fun. And then the huge news is we are doing a brand new festival. It's year one.
Anna Garcia 19:52
I found my voice as an artist through improv. And as corny as that sounds, it's true. And you know, giving people access to that, access to being silly and dumb and trying new things and having a community is like crucial. And so I was so excited about this improv festival where people are not only part of Hear.Say Theater, but coming in from out of state and from, you know, Chicago and stuff. I was so excited when Tony and Chris emailed me about this originally. I was like, oh yeah, yes.
Tony DeRosa: 20:18
We actually are bringing in over 50 teams. I believe we've got close to 20 states represented and I mean really thousands of people. So it'll be at your place and then at the Michigan theater. Yeah, our place will be a venue. We've got this like contained black box theater in the middle of the brewery, which if you're just having a drink, you don't even have to worry that that's there. If you're in the theater, other things happening in the brewery won't affect your enjoyment of the show. Um, so we'll have some festival events there, and then uh a lot of it will be uh at the Michigan Theater, both in the screening room and in the main auditorium.
Mark Clague: 20:48
All right. Well, I got to get my ticket because I don't I know they're selling fast.
Tony DeRosa: 20:51
They're selling fast. Yeah, the Friday shows are close to 75% uh sold. We've got Improvised Shakespeare is coming on Saturday, which is probably my all-time favorite improv show, and then the uh closing out is Yes Also, which is a really wonderful improv podcast for any folks uh listening that are really interested in learning more about improv. They've got wonderful guests on that show, and they'll be doing a live podcast recording and a final closing show at 9 p.m. on Saturday, June 27th.
Mark Clague: 21:19
Anna and Tony, thank you so much for joining us today. I so appreciate you sharing your perspective on creativity, collaboration, and embracing the unexpected. It's always inspiring to hear from Michigan alumni who have forged unique and meaningful paths. We appreciate you taking the time to be with us today, and we wish you all the best with the inaugural Yes, Ann Improv Festival and everything ahead. Thanks again for being part of Creative Currents. Creative Currents is a project of the University of Michigan's Arts Initiative. Please subscribe to hear more great conversations with artists, scholars, and arts leaders from across the campus and across the globe. Send your comments and suggestions via email to creativecurrents at umich.edu. This episode of Creative Currents was produced by Jessica Jenks and edited by Brian Lillie. Our original theme music is composed and performed by Ansel Neely, an alumnus of the University of Michigan's School of Music, Theater, and Dance. To learn more about the University of Michigan's Arts Initiative, please visit our website at arts.umich.edu. Thank you for listening and for being part of the Michigan Arts community. It makes our campus so fabulous. Until next time, stay curious, stay inspired, and keep your creative currents flowing.
