The Definitive Guide to Comedy
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 …
Liza Treyger is a New York based stand-up comic by way of Chicago, who grew up in nearby Skokie after immigrating from Russia when she was 3. Treyger has her own Comedy Central half-hour special and album, GLITTERCHEESE, and a more recent half-hour special on Netflix as part of The …
Chicago fans of The Daily Show with Trevor Noah can see Noah and his correspondents up close and personal this October, as Comedy Central is taking the show on the road to the Athenaeum Theatre. “The Daily Show Undesked Chicago 2017: Let’s Do This Before It Gets Too Damn Cold” will broadcast Monday, …
Caitlin Barlow, Katy Colloton, Cate Freedman, Kate Lambert, Katie O’Brien and Kathryn Renée Thomas met in various Chicago improvisational theaters, and with a shared name and a dream between them, formed The Katydids. They’ve sold a sitcom to NBC and a feature film screenplay, but none of that might have …
Usually the World Series gives participating cities a chance to show off their homegrown musical talent to sing the National Anthem. In the case of the Chicago Cubs, they did just that in a way, with their regular anthem singer Wayne Messmer holding court once more. But Cubs fans at …
Godfrey was born in Nebraska to Nigerian parents who had fled that country’s civil war in the late 1960s. Godfrey grew up in Chicago, which is also where he started pursuing comedy – despite his pre-med psychology degree at the University of Illinois – and where he filmed his newest hour …
The Second City’s actors have left a long legacy of comedic brilliance on the big screen, and now, in 2016, the Chicago-based theater company and training ground has launched what it’s billing as “the world’s first film school focusing on comedic content,” the Harold Ramis Film School. Ramis not only …
Hannibal Buress, threw himself a big ol’ bash when he turned 30. By then, Hannibal already had released two albums and a Comedy Central special, written for Saturday Night Live and 30 Rock, won an American Comedy Award, and was providing straight-man sidekick glances for The Eric Andre Show. It’s …
As a comedian, Mulaney is much more interested in breaking down the rules of language than he is literal laws of society. Whether it’s an old boss he had while temping who claimed he was “too old to be a duckling, quack quack,” or a woman he passed on the …
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 …
