Chicago Improv

Chicago Improv

Mike Myers, Tina Fey, Bill Murray, John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Alan Alda, Shelley Long, Ed Asner, John Candy, Andy Dick. These are just a few of the comic actors who, were they to attempt to trace their path to stardom, might credit nights spent improvising on Chicago stages.

Chicago was the birthplace of the improvisational comedy form some 50-odd years ago, and the city remains the country's primary breeding ground for this challenging art form. Performers, usually working in an ensemble, ask the audience for a suggestion, then launch into short, long, silly, serious, or surreal scenes loosely related to that original audience input.

Second City (312/337-3992) is the anchor of Chicago improv. The revues on the company's main stage and in its smaller e.t.c. space next door are actually sketch comedy shows, but the scripts in these pre-rehearsed scenes have been developed through improvisation and there's usually a little time set aside in each show for the performers to demonstrate their quick wit. Most nights there is a free improv set after the late show featuring cast members and invited guests (sometimes famous, sometimes not, never announced in advance). It's in Donny's Skybox upstairs that you're more likely to see one of Chicago's many fledgling improv comedy troupes making their first appearance working together on freshly penned material in public.

I.O (773/880-0199). (formerly called ImprovOlympic) is the city's home of long-form improvisation. The signature piece is "The Harold," in which a team of improvisers explores a single audience suggestion throughout a series of stories and characters until they all eventually weave back together to fit with the original audience idea. At ComedySportz Chicago (773/549-8080), teams of professional improvisers perform songs and scenes all based on your suggestions in an audience-interactive competition. The itinerant group Annoyance,now settled into its new home in Uptown at 4840 North Broadway, is best known for past hits Coed Prison Sluts and Splatter Theatre.

Scope out the hordes of up-and-comers at neighborhood stages such as the Playground Theater (773/871-3793) .

The springtime Chicago Improv Festival (773/935-9810), the nation's largest festival for improvisers, has stages devoted to group, pair, and single improv and sketch comedy and more.