Improv/Sketch Search
Best Musical!
Through 5/23: Wed 7:30 PMImprov/Sketch
A full musical comedy is improvised with audience suggestions. $15
773-327-5252Fake Believe
Through 5/25: Saturdays, 9:30 PMImprov/Sketch
A sketch show that blends reality with all manner of fantasy, from fairy tales, to video games, to Harry Potter. $10-$15
Breast in Show
Through 5/26: Sun 7:30 PMImprov/Sketch
GayCo Productions presents an all-woman sketch comedy show. $15
The Comedy Rock Show
Through 5/28: Tue 8 PMImprov/Sketch
Comedy music performed in a wide array of genres. $7
Hump Night
Through 5/29: Wed 7:30 and 10:30 PMImprov/Sketch
Kevin Mullaney hosts this improv-based variety show, which features local comedians and musicians. pay what you want
The Improvised Sondheim Project
Through 5/31: Fri 10:30 PMImprov/Sketch
Last spring, five Second City faculty members inaugurated a troupe devoted to Stephen Sondheim. The mission? To dream up Sondheimesque musicals on the spot. One year later, the gambit has paid off. Their tribute trades a stable plot for riffs on characters and themes; their lyrics testify to their knack for internal rhyming. "Birthday" was the audience suggestion on the night I attended. The opening fanfare rapidly devolved into a cacophony of voices. After the prologue wrapped, the players introduced the show's central cog, Geraldine, a fresh-eyed high school dropout from Ohio who's trying her luck on Broadway. In Sondheim style, there's an absurd conceit: she intends to make it on the street, not onstage, handing out flyers—a job with more potential for rejection than a Broadway career. —Jena Cutie $15
The Onion Live
Through 6/5: 7:15 PMImprov/Sketch
A sketch revue produced by the popular news satire.
$15
Sex, aka Wiener and Boobs
Through 6/8: Thu-Sat 8 PMImprov/Sketch
Written by three alums of the memorably bizarre TV sketch show The State, this antic 1998 farce gets its first Chicago staging from Chemically Imbalanced Comedy. Equal parts sharp self-awareness and broad buffoonery, it feels like something that could have been written yesterday—at least under Angie McMahon's whip-smart direction. The story, such as it is, concerns a Teaneck, New Jersey, sheriff's battle to rid his town of the evil Tad Theaterman, who controls a local empire of hookers and gigolos and is known for what he calls his "asshole ways." But the show's real strength is its unrelenting train of gags, and McMahon mainlines them with a wide bore. It's a powerful combination of intentionally dumb material and eagle-eyed comedic execution. —Keith Griffith $15
Craft Beer and Relationchips
Through 6/8: Sat 9:30 PMImprov/Sketch
When I last visited the Wrigleyville stage that hosts this simpleminded Butch LaRue sketch comedy, it was for a silent performance of handmade wooden puppets. Ownership has since changed hands, and the joint now sells buckets of Bud Lite and fireball shooters in the lobby, where I saw one patron toting a beer funnel. The new vibe matches the show. Tim Soszko directs his ensemble in an assault of brief sketches, which tend to stretch a single joke like taffy across an unpleasant minute or two. Broad stereotypes and blow job jokes abound in scenes that illuminate the common experiences of the young professional: time-share presentations (they suck), quarterly review meetings (suck), relationship disputes over the remote (suck). The house was packed on opening night. —Keith Griffith $15
4 Days Late: #SHOW
Through 6/15: Saturdays, 10 PMImprov/Sketch
Includes improv with a few dance moves, following the overarching theme of technology. $15
The Original Improv Gladiators
Through 6/15: Fri-Sat 8 PMImprov/Sketch
An improv competition featuring featuring local groups. $15
Chicagoland and Fish Nuts
Open run: Tue 8 PMImprov/Sketch
At the start of each show an all-star ensemble creates a tableau onstage, then asks after a blackout, "Where in Chicago did that take place?" "Soccer practice" was the response the night I was there, and after an hour the improvisers--intensely alert and feisty--had crafted a veritable community, complete with idiosyncratic characters, unpredictable backstory, and tragicomic intrigue. Veteran T.J. Jagodowski, recognizable from a series of Sonic commercials he's done with quick-witted cast member Peter Grosz, played a thick-accented German coach. Abruptly launching a new scene by charging to the front of the stage, he squatted and gestured as he yelled at his coed youth team, "I will yank on your nuts like the Hunchback of Notre Dame working a bell!" --Ryan Hubbard $8
Cook County Social Club
Open run: Tue 8 PMImprov/Sketch
These four performers are as brazenly committed to improv's "affirm everything" mantra as any I've seen. Their dark, flamboyant comic sensibilities clearly aligned, they orchestrate black-comedy vignettes tethered to richly odd characters. But what most impressed me was how fluidly and creatively they transitioned between scenes, usually dangerous improv moments. The Frank Hayes 4 opens. --Ryan Hubbard
$12
The Reckoning
Open run: Tue 10:30 PMImprov/Sketch
Six years ago members of some disbanding groups hooked up to form the Reckoning, whose ten performers have now been together longer than any other group at iO. These players always stand out when they appear in other ensembles, and together, as masters of iO's signature form, the Harold, they're remarkably consistent at giving audiences something to laugh at and students something to study. Bits and jokes are cleverly brought back; scenes shift smoothly or jarringly depending on what works with the action; performers who aren't center stage often remain in character. But despite all the hard listening and cooperation, they do call each other out on odd responses. When someone playing an insecure man asked the woman playing his girlfriend/wife, "Why'd you look away at that light when you said that?" he called attention to a pregnant unconscious gesture, which gave her an opportunity to riff on his meta-comment. On Thursdays they do long-form improv, and on Tuesdays they let loose, experimenting with forms and styles. Past Tuesday shows have included stage versions of films and stand-up sets by each player. --Ryan Hubbard
$5-$12
Felt
Open run: Wed 8 PMImprov/Sketch
There's just something about cussing puppets--and this improvised puppet show by the Atticus Finch ensemble suggests bitter, rejected prototypes of Elmo, Chewbacca, McGruff the Crime Dog, and Crank Yankers/Muppets characters ganging up in a dark alley off Sesame Street. But the troupe's nine members exceed the old, easy laugh of vulgar-talking innocents: after tutorials from professional puppeteers and a few months of practice, they display sophisticated physical control as they wield the puppets from behind the curtains of a bilevel ministage. Seamlessly creating gestures and quick takes (hilariously deadpan on the perfectly blank cartoonish faces), they also smoothly execute difficult maneuvers like sliding a quarter across a bar or crossing the stage via motorized scooter. Sharp timing and self-mockery point to the performers' long experience together, though the motley mob of puppets takes center stage: Felt is improv cut from new cloth. --Ryan Hubbard
$5
