'I help to pull performance out of people and the same things that work with actors work with corporates,' she explains. Something of a pioneer, she says she is the only coach using drama in this way in Asia.

Not that her clients, who include BP, Mandarin Oriental and Jardines companies such as Gammon and Pizza Hut don yellow stockings and masks for training. 'The definition of acting is living truthfully under an imaginary set of circumstances - not performing to please someone.'

Her dramatic credentials are extensive, having arrived in Hong Kong 23 years ago from San Francisco via Hawaii as a radio and drama professional. She came to work with Hong Kong's professional English language theatre company, The Actors Rep and a decade later set up FM select, one of the three radio stations in the Metro stable.

In the years that followed she ran a corporate entertainment business, Caught in the Act with Andy Chworowsky, until he set up the Fat Angelo's Italian restaurant chain.

'The last time I trod the boards was in a production called Ancient History in 2001,' she says, a little wistfully. Her communications-based experience meant she could transfer her theatre skills to the corporate coaching world.

However, she stresses: 'Communication is a very broad spectrum antibiotic.' And she is nothing if not focused.

'I'm not who you want to teach strategic planning to financial controllers, you need me for more effective communication skills.'

The issues she helps clients tackle might be an expatriate boss whose overly direct approach is alienating his local colleagues. 'He needs help in reading the responses of others correctly - that's a big piece of the communications puzzle,' she stresses.

Cross-cultural problems often come up - and by that she means male-female as well as Western-Asian. Someone can be very good at a non-confrontational style of communication but needs help adapting to a situation where assertiveness and challenges to management are expected, she explains.

She runs this and a corporate entertainment business with one full-time staff member and part-time support. She does little marketing, with her business coming via referrals. Human resources departments send all grades her way, from tall poppies singled out for fast track promotion to middle managers and senior executives who want to interact better.

She is adamant about what her approach is and is not. She does not video role-played work situations and then make the person watch their blunders.

'We don't video you being bad in action - the important thing is you getting it right.

'The object is to experience the feeling of giving a good performance, so you know how getting it right feels.'

Role plays are extraordinarily helpful by themselves, she says. 'In life, how often do you get to rehearse that meeting?'

Whether she is doing training with groups or one-on-one coaching, the idea is to allow the dramatic process to demonstrate alternative effective ways to do things. Improvisational theatre has many parallels with the corporate world but this is serious playacting.

Successful theatrical improvising means accepting shifting leadership roles and offers from others.

'You can't do improvisational theatre unless you agree on some rules and you must take what you are given and work with it - it's the same in an office,' she adds.

'You must be creative - as in business - you must be entrepreneurial; it's not enough just to do the job.

'You must think outside the box and improvisational theatre offers the tool kit to explore these areas.'

In one-to-one coaching, the client discusses their issues before going to a big theatrical play room to rehearse and improvise situations. Ms Norton directs, supported by other actors.

This teaches clients to be more flexible as they consider the many ways to respond and react in any situation, she adds.

'I just want to make people better communicators. It's never about the task; it's always the people who are the problem.' The result is that leaders can give better feedback to employees.

Ms Norton believes firmly in the CS Lewis adage that people don't need re-educating, just reminding of what they already know. 'We are all theory experts - the challenge is to get them good in action and performing well with others in their team.'

What is important is to understand what groups or individuals need so that they leave 'brilliant in action in that specific area'.

In one-to-one coaching, clients attend 18 hourly sessions over several months. 'I'm an exception, an actor with a business mind. I understand what executives need,' she says, and at $60,000 to $80,000 per course, individual coaching doesn't come cheap, but companies see it as investing in the next generation of leaders.

Helping people in this way is very satisfying, she says. Many are nervous initially but once trust and rapport are established, they revel in the chance to air work issues confidentially.

Their biggest fear is: 'Am I going to have to wear a mask?' But coaching, she says, 'is the way for you to become the most truthful version of yourself'.