Ellen Martin stood up before a class at The Actors Institute, recounted a difficult encounter at work and began to cry.

Like most clientele these days at the acting school -- whose co-founders include actor Ted Danson -- Martin has little interest in acting.

Instead, she said, she wants to perform better in her own job as an animation producer.

"I want to be able to talk to an audience effectively and not flip out," she said, wiping away the tears that she dismissed as ridiculous and embarrassing.

As its name might not suggest, The Actors Institute, founded in 1977, has shifted its focus to business clients, aiming to use the principles of theater to unleash creativity in the workplace rather than the stage.

"We don't do play acting, we don't play clowns and we don't dress up as Richard III," said Graeme Thomson, head of European operations for the school known as TAI.

"It's much deeper than that," he said. "It's about who and what you are, what are your core values and how does that influence your creative impulse."

The Actors Institute is one of several acting schools around the world where the traditionally stuffier corporate world is taking tips from the typically more lively world of drama. Another actor profiting in the field is John Cleese, a former member of Monty Python, who employs his comic skills to help train executives in Britain.

"You have a unique way of seeing the world," said Allen Schoer, an institute co-founder and its chief executive. "In the business world, we try to help bring that to the workplace and have it be more than a job. It becomes a creative platform."

"POWER AND PRESENCE"

A recent day at the institute found director Gifford Booth teaching about a dozen students -- including salesmen and corporate middle managers -- on "Communicating with Power and Presence."

Booth paced the room, encouraging them to connect with their audience, take command of the room, project their voice and, not unimportantly, breathe.

"We know you're not comfortable. It's our pleasure," he said with a sly smile.

Several students squirmed in their seats. Over their heads, scribbled on one wall, were the reasons they listed for joining the class. One wrote: "Be centered, be me, not drift into roles," while another had written: "I want to know what I want to say."

Student Malcolm Jackson of St. Louis said he wanted to improve his performance as director of an information technology department at a biotechnology company.

"I want to have a commanding presence. I want to make sure I get my point across and I'm selling my ideas," he said.

Former student Michael Hansen, a former corporate strategist and now a private investor, said he learned to apply the school's theatrical principles to his work.

"A lot of people have a great deal of passion for the business they're in, but they're not really expressing it," he said. "This is finding that core of why you do what you do, and why you have a passion for it and why you are in this job.

"You're in it for the money, but it's usually a bit more than that," he said.

Thomson said The Actors Institute's business, which reaches into Asia and Europe, has doubled in the past two years. The company started its shift to more business clients about a decade ago, although it continues to teach acting classes as well, he said.

"Business people started to come see what it was like and said, 'We've got to use this in our company,"' he said. "We responded to that.

"More and more companies are hungry to work on issues of creativity and performance in the workplace," he said.

Courses for individuals begin at about $1,200, he said.

"We spend a lot of time being told by others what we can and can't do. A little voice on your shoulder says, 'You can't do that, you're an accountant,"' he said. "But whether they're a corporate person or an actor, we have them take another look at who they are.

"Creativity does not mean painting the Sistine Chapel. It can be the way you make your coffee in the morning."