Jason R. Chin, a longtime improv performer, director and instructor at iO Theater, was reported dead late Thursday. He was 46.
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 10:34AMThe Chicago Sketch Comedy Festival returns Thursday for its 14th year, spotlighting a mammoth selection of scripted comedy from groups from the Chicago area and parts elsewhere. The fest is …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 02:35PMIf improv shows reveal what's in a performer's subconscious, the audience suggestions that kick everything off can be just as revealing about what's in the zeitgeist at any given moment.
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:08PMSmall budgets and even smaller venues are often part of the fringe theater equation. But what sets Chicago apart from most other theater towns is that our grass-roots scene blossoms with wor…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 07:25PMThe mystery at hand is a thin one, but maybe that's the point. Sherlock Holmes never seemed like a man particularly swayed by the holiday season; surely he would look for any excuse or busyw…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 10:43AMI was fully charmed by this small-scale collection of original short plays from Step Up Productions. The stories at hand are not necessarily Christmas-focused, but they all share the holiday…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 10:43AM"Waiting for Guffman" didn't even crack $3 million at the box office when it came out in 1997. The comedy is probably best watched on the small screen anyway, where you can rewind the funnie…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:42PMBeloved as it is, "Waiting for Guffman" didn't even crack $3 million at the box office when it came out in 1997. The comedy is probably best watched on the small screen anyway, where you can…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:42PMThe tropes of old-school grindhouse flicks are transferred to the stage with enthusiastic fidelity at Strawdog Theater, and when actor Joe Mack makes his first entrance — wearing mirrored …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 12:42PMPrior to his appearance at the Mission Theater (at iO) Wednesday afternoon in front of sold-out crowd of improv students and performers, John Cleese turned to me and said, "Don't be alarmed!…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 10:58AMCreated by a group of friends from Highland Park High School, the party game Cards Against Humanity incorporates the non-sequitur silliness of Mad Libs with a blazingly simple premise wherei…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:35PM"Women at War"
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:35PMOutside of "Private Benjamin" and "G.I. Jane," pop culture hasn't really given much thought to women who serve in the military. The more prosaic reality — the day-to-day of what it means t…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:35PMOnce, when I was a young teenager and my parents were out of town, the baby sitter staying at our home looking after me — and, by extension, looking after Missy, our sweet if somewhat daff…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 05:13PMIn a zombie story that never actually uses the word "zombie" — one of the more realistic decisions made here — playwright Jackie Sibblies Drury sticks a handful of survivors in an abando…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 05:13PMA young, gay playwright — a self-described "white dude" — writes a script about an "alcoholic black mother and her cardsharp son trying to get out of the projects" and submits it to the …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:17PMMy experience with the plays of Chicago writer Jon Steinhagen has been mixed. He can be such a funny writer, and he has a real instinct for throwing groups of lousy-but-endearing idiots toge…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 04:17PMUgly people doing ugly things to one another isn't a bad premise for a black comedy. In her rarely produced first play from 1972, Caryl Churchill juices that premise with a kind of manic, la…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 11:20AMLillian Hellman's call to arms, cloaked in a light drawing-room comedy that morphs into something far more serious, debuted on Broadway in 1941. It was about eight months before the U.S. ent…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 11:20AMMark Bolan, one of the founding ensemble members the Chicago outpost of ComedySportz, was killed in a car accident early Monday morning, the improv theater has confirmed.
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 06:16PMGrief, in all its complexity and shifting emotional topography, is a difficult thing to dramatize. In the world premiere of "Another Bone" at Redtwist Theatre, playwright Cathy Earnest relie…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 05:48PMA formidable cast including Henry Fonda and Walter Matthau fills out 1964 Cold War thriller "Fail-Safe," adapted from the 1962 novel of the same name, about a technical glitch that mistakenl…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 05:48PMLongtime Chicago theater actress Molly Glynn is in critical condition Saturday morning at NorthShore Evanston Hospital, a spokeswoman for the hospital confirmed. According to sources, Glynn …
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 10:58AMThirty-two years ago Charna Halpern approached Del Close with an offer. He was already a renowned director in the world of comedy, and working at Second City. She had just launched the Impro…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 06:17PMThe show is touted as "improvised mentalism," and having seen it, I'm still not sure what that means exactly. Eric Lindberg (a ComedySportz ensemble member) is loose, unpretentious and quick…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:15PM"Let's not be that couple!" Josh Lanzet remembers a girlfriend saying as she's got in her car and he was shouting "I love you's" out of the window of his house. Relationships and their stran…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:15PMImprov hub iO Theater recently moved into new digs in a freshly renovated building in Lincoln Park's Clybourn Corridor.
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 09:51AMDysfunction and desolation in a rundown motel room — sounds like something by Sam Shepard. But the best this play can muster is Sam Shepard-light, with its story of a comely pool hustler (…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:01PMA quarter-life crisis has descended upon an upscale Dallas hotel room where Mike (Derek Garza) and Seth (Michael Manocchio), friends since childhood, find themselves facing down their 30s an…
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 01:01PM
