Last Sunday, during my Jimmy & Johnnie show at Second City, John Hildreth and I invited Joe Bill, a well-known improviser and teacher in Chicago, to play with us as our special guest. John and I have been playing together for almost seven years, but I have known Joe much longer, from my days at […]
I have a good friend who is an accomplished singer and actor who recently got a great callback for a play she auditioned for. She put a lot effort into the audition and she was excited about it, but a couple of days before the callback, she started to doubt whether she really wanted the […]
Andel Sudik is an incredible improviser and teacher. She has performed all over the United States with The Second City Touring Company and in Europe with Boom Chicago, and she travels the world improvising and teaching. We talked to her about how she creates her wonderful characters on stage, what she learned about herself after […]
Jimmy Pennington is one of the Annoyance Theater's most popular improv teachers. He has performed in lots of shows there, including Co-ed Prison Sluts, and is currently in Fish Bowl on Thursday nights. We talked him about how to "get out of your head" when you are improvising, how to improvise from the character versus […]
If you haven't heard, improv training has become quite popular in the corporate world. Thank God. It seems lately every book on business, sales and presentations I pick up has a chapter or two on the power of improv. Today, when I go into a company or organization to teach improv, most people are not […]
Vernon Mina teaches and performs at The Annoyance Theater in Chicago where he is currently in Trigger Happy directed by Mick Napier. He also performs with the Second City Touring Company and has previously understudied for Second City’s ETC. We talked to him about the Annoyance style of improv, diversity in improv in Chicago and […]
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I am a slow learner. And I’m conflicted about learning new things: My soul loves to learn while my ego hates it. Last week, I wrote and performed a new solo piece for a storytelling night called Louder Than a Mom. It was about when I was growing up and we’d go out to dinner as […]
I used to think the only satisfaction I could get from improv was when I performing it. You know, the attention that being on stage gives you. I thought I could only be happy if I was getting the laughs, the applause and the accolades. That is how I thought for a long time. I was […]
The summer is a good time to catch up on some reading, and I have come up with a short list of books all about making it in the world of comedy that I think you would really enjoy inside in the air conditioning or outside in the sun. So if the summer movies disappoint, […]