Anna Rósa Parker spent years in rehearsal rooms. Her job was to convince a room full of strangers she was someone else entirely. Status, subtext, the unspoken thing a character wants but never says out loud… these were just tools of the trade. She didn’t expect those same tools would end up shaping a leadership methodology now taught at New York University. That’s the story behind EVOKE Your Story™, created by Anna Rósa, with her husband Shanga Parker joining as co-founder in 2023. It’s useful for a simple reason. Most leaders have felt like they were performing a role that didn’t quite fit, even without a script in hand.
Nobody Asks Executives What They’re Hiding
Anna Rósa grew up in Iceland, where she competed in aerobics before training in theatre and playwriting at the University of Washington. From there, her path led into brand storytelling. She worked with hospitality and lifestyle names including Baccarat Hotel & Residences, 1 Hotels, Sóley Organics, Furtuna Skin, and EleVen by Venus Williams. Along the way, she kept noticing something. Actors ask specific questions about a character: what do they want, what are they hiding, what’s actually driving this behavior. Almost nobody asks executives those same questions, even though executives work through the same territory every day. They just don’t have a stage.
Shanga joined her in 2023 to help build out the methodology further. Together, they shaped EVOKE Your Story™ around the tools actors use to build a believable character. Given circumstances is the specific context shaping how someone shows up in a moment. Status is the quiet negotiation of power and confidence under any interaction. Subtext is the real thing being communicated underneath the polite thing being said. An actor asks these questions about a character so the performance reads as true. A leader who asks them about themselves gets a clearer read on why a decision felt hard, why a conversation kept going sideways, or why a certain room brings out a version of them they don’t fully recognize. Structured self-reflection like this, rather than a vague push to “be authentic,” has been linked to sharper decision-making and stronger working relationships (Source: Harvard Business Review, 2018).
It Was Never About the Performance
EVOKE wasn’t created to help performers find more truth under the lights. It was built for what happens after the lights go down. That’s when an actor walks back into ordinary life carrying whatever story they’ve absorbed about who they’re allowed to be. Anna Rósa was always more interested in those off-stage narratives than in anything happening on a set. A performance ends when the curtain closes. The story someone carries into their actual life doesn’t.
That distinction holds up because of how people actually work. The stories someone tells about their own life aren’t just a record of what happened. They actively shape identity, motivation, and behavior going forward (Source: Evolutionary Studies in Imaginative Culture, 2019). EVOKE doesn’t hand someone a new story to perform instead. The work is closer to recognition than invention. It helps someone see the narrative that’s already running the show, so they can decide, with open eyes, whether it’s still one worth carrying forward.
The neuroscience side leans on the body as much as the mind. Anna Rósa is a certified HeartMath® coach. The methodology pairs heart-intelligence training with the storytelling work, on the premise that the nervous system needs to be regulated before any insight actually lands. Heart rhythm patterns have been shown to influence cognitive function and emotional stability in measurable ways (Source: Integral Review, 2009). That’s a large part of why a coaching conversation held in a dysregulated body tends to go nowhere, no matter how sharp the questions are.
Story plus a settled nervous system is what separates this from a straightforward communication workshop. Naming a pattern in a leader’s decision-making is only half the work. The other half is helping that leader’s body stay regulated enough to actually sit with what they’ve noticed instead of deflecting from it. That’s where the heart-intelligence piece earns its place in the methodology, rather than sitting alongside it as an add-on.
The Classroom Wasn’t Part of the Plan Either
Anna Rósa has worked with students at NYU since 2022 and now serves as a guest lecturer. That’s where EVOKE moved beyond private coaching and into a classroom setting. She brings the methodology to students working through questions of creative identity and professional communication. A collaboration with Columbia University is reportedly in development for fall 2026, extending the classroom side of the work further.
What started as a methodology for actors and artists has grown to include an online course, individual and executive coaching, and workshops for founders, leadership teams, and organizations. The audience isn’t limited to people with a theatre background or a corner office. A good share of it is entrepreneurs, creatives, and professionals navigating a stretch of life where the old story about who they’re supposed to be has stopped fitting. That includes women moving through transitions like menopause or an empty nest, redefining what comes next. Stories that genuinely engage an audience activate more of the brain and stick with people longer than a plain list of facts (Source: Cerebrum, 2015). That’s a large part of why a narrative-first approach to leadership development tends to outperform a purely tactical one.
If Your Own Story Doesn’t Fit Anymore, Start Here
None of this requires a theatre background or a willingness to get on a stage. It just requires one question, the same one that kept surfacing throughout years of building this methodology: whose story is actually running right now, and is it still the one worth telling? For founders, executives, and anyone navigating a stretch of life that no longer fits the identity they built it around, EVOKE Your Story™ offers a structured way in. That’s through its online course, individual coaching, and executive programs, with more available on their website.
