The Definitive Guide to Comedy
Remember last year during the pandemic when Chicago’s comedy community asked The Second City and the iO to change their ways when it came to respecting racial diversity onstage and in the business, and the The Second City sacked its longtime CEO and then Charna Halpern suddenly shuttered the IO? …
First the UCB closed up its doors in New York City. Now comes word that the Chicago theater that gave birth to the Upright Citizens Brigade also will not reopen. Charna Halpern, co-founder and still head improviser in charge of improvOlympic (aka iO), confirmed today that Chicago’s iO Theater will …
Red Crown Productions LLC announced it’s developing a biopic about Chicago improvising legends Del Close and Charna Halpern, Del & Charna. Kay Cannon will direct the film, off a script from Rich Talarico and Alex Fendrich. All three are alums from The Second City, and Cannon and Talarico both studied …
In the mid-1990s, as a handful of Del Close’s disciples moved to New York City to pursue their own show-business dreams as the Upright Citizens Brigade, another Close loyalist and student had gone Hollywood. Paul Vaillancourt saw he wasn’t the only improvOlympic alum in Los Angeles, and he asked Close …
In case you missed it, the past couple of weeks have borne witness to some significant strides forward toward shining a light on the plight of women in comedy. Particularly when it comes to harassment and sexual abuse. First and foremost, Charna Halpern confirmed that she had fired an artistic director …
Ali Farahnakian is living the American comedy dream. Born in Iran and raised in North Carolina, Ali moved to Chicago after college and fell right in with The Second City, improv Olympic and the teachings of Del Close and Charna Halpern. Saying “Yes, And” to life led him to becoming …
Longtime Chicago improv actor and teacher Jason R. Chin died suddenly Thursday night. Chin was 46. Improv Olympic founder Charna Halpern passed along the devastating news overnight. “I am heart broken. Our Jason Chin passed away,” Halpern wrote to friends. “He was a wonderful friend and a huge part of …
