Chicago Improv Festival
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Now in its second year, this annual celebration of the art of improvisational comedy runs April 6 through 11, bringing together members of the improv scene from around North America for a week of performances and workshops. Featured out-of-towners this year include the Groundlings, LA’s leading improv ensemble, in their Chicago debut; the formerly Chicago-based Upright Citizens Brigade (now stars of their own show on cable TV’s Comedy Central); Minneapolis’s Brave New Workshop in a return visit; New York’s Burn Manhattan, led by former Chicago director Shira Piven; Montreal’s On the Spot; and many more. The home team, meanwhile, includes current and former members of the Second City, ImprovOlympic, the Free Associates, the Annoyance Theatre, the Factory Theater, ComedySportz, GayCo Productions, the Black Comedy Underground, Sheila, Schadenfreude, and the Zeitgeist Theater, among others. There’ll also be a tribute to improv guru Del Close, to whose memory producers Frances Callier and Jonathan Pitts have fittingly dedicated the festival.
The Reader runs festival listings on a week-by-week basis; following is the schedule for April 6 through 8.
GayCo Productions’ comedy revue Everyone’s Coming Out, Rosie!, which focuses on gay and lesbian themes, “delivers a ton of lavender-laced laughs,” says Reader critic Lawrence Bommer. Performance artist Abby Schachner, an alumna of Second City’s touring troupe and the all-woman ensemble Jane, portrays “a middle-aged lesbian from the Ukrainian Village [neighborhood],” according to a press release. And Bailiwick Repertory’s resident improv group Aha! satirizes the gay urban experience. Annoyance Theatre, 8 PM. $15.
This trio of Second City alumni team up for what a press release gingerly calls an “unpredictable performance.” Annoyance Theatre, 10:30 PM. $10.
