Chicago Improv Festival

The Chicago Improv Festival! June 2-8 2008!
The Chicago Improv Festival!
June 2-8, 2008
Important Year Round Festival Info:
Update: 1/20/08 CIF 2008 Dates Changed To June 2-8The dates for the 11th Annual Chicago Improv Festival have been changed from April 21-27 to June 2-8. Chicago Improv Festival Executive Director Jonathan Pitts explains, "With the on-going writer's strike, we've had a hard time getting commitments from possible headlining actors and writers. By moving the dates of the festival to June this gives everyone more time to see how everything shakes out."Pitts continues, "We choose June 2-8 because there are no other improv festivals during it, nor the week before or the week after. Also, there are no major conventions in Chicago that week, so we have regained our hotel sponsorship with Essex Inn of Chicago. Other advantages include warmer weather, the Cubs being out of town thus better parking for our audience, a new partnership with Snubfest which happens that same weekend, a possible partnership with the Midwest Independent Film Festival which happens that week, we regain the Park West as a super-stage venue, we gain the Lakeshore Theater as the week-long Mainstage venue, we retain The Second City Skybox as the Showcase venue, and we will continue our co-presenting partnerships with Chicago's comedy theatres for on-site programming during the festival week. I'm really excited about the way everything has come together for the new festival dates in June. It is like watching a great Harold."Chicago Improv Festival's Artistic Director Mark Sutton said, "This is perfect, and it allows me to do more creative programming." Sutton has opened up the festival possibilities by changing his previous concept for the 2008 festival. Now everyone is encouraged to submit their act or ensemble to CIF, as there will be no formula of selecting just one act or ensemble per city. Says Pitts, "CIF's decade long tradition is to celebrate and present the finest and funniest examples of improv comedy from all over the world and we look forward to doing this in 2008".Chicago Improv Festival has also changed its submission deadline for acts, duos, ensembles and apprentice teams to Friday, February 28th at 9pm (CST). Announcements of selected festival acts will be Saturday, March 15 at 5pm (CST), and announcements of festival headliners will begin in mid-April. For complete and updated submission information, please visit www.ChicagoImprovFestival.orgIn additional festival news, CIF will keep it's previously scheduled April 25-26 weekend dates at The Second City Skybox. CIF will present a CIF 2008 Preview, with improv performances by Chicago ensembles at 8pm, 9pm, 10pm, and 11pm. CIF Artistic Director Mark Sutton will program the acts for this weekend. BASSPROV is expected to headline on one or both nights. The full line-up will be announced soon.January 10 - Feburary 3, 2008: CIF's Storybox run @ Piven Theatre (Evanston, IL)
January 15, 2008: CIF's episodes of College Comedy Championship begin airing on OSTN-TV
March 12 or 19, 2008: CIF's Improv Awards Night @ Site TBD
April 21-27, 2008: The 11th annual Chicago Improv Festival @ Vic Theatre, Second City Skybox & other venues TBD
June 27 - August 5, 2008: CIF's Summer Theatre Camp @ Ridge ParkAbout The Chicago Improv Festival:
Improvisational comedy is one of Chicago’s homegrown art forms, and the Chicago Improv Festival is seen as the “Mecca of Improv” to comedy fans worldwide. From April 23-29, 2007, the Chicago Improv Festival celebrated its 10th anniversary. In the last 10 years the Chicago Improv Festival has become the biggest, most prestigious, and internationally known improv festival in the world.
In 2005, the Chicago Improv Festival became an official not-for-profit organization. In 2006, CIF received its first grant from The Field Foundation, and CIF changed its name to Chicago Improv Festival Productions in order to better represent its various programs, which includes:
The annual spring professional festival featuring renowned comedy celebrities.
CIF’s Awards Night honoring the top artists of Chicago’s comedic art form
Educational outreach performances and workshops for Chicago students*
High School comedy festival, and College comedy festival**
Notes:
*Last year, CIF’s outreach programs worked with over 6,000 Chicago children and teens.History:

The Chicago Improv Festival (CIF) was founded in 1998 as an educational forum. The festival teaches the art of improv, the history of and the potential for innovation within the art form to students of the craft, professional improv artists and the public. While other improv festivals exist around the world, several in the United States, the Chicago Improv Festival is the only festival that has been created solely for the purposes of documenting, promoting and teaching improv as an art form. The founding of the organization in Chicago, Illinois itself speaks to the organization’s commitment to the legacy of improv and promoting that legacy to others.
Improv began in Chicago. Its history can be traced back to 1945 when it was taught to school children at Chicago’s Hull House. Improv was introduced as a way to teach the valuable skills of theater while being freed of the strictures of stage production that were often too costly to be accessible to the poor. Public performances began in July of 1955 at the University of Chicago by the first improv ensemble, The Compass. Though short lived, only existing from 1955-59, The Compass set the stage for the future of improv. This included the founding of The Second City by former Compass player, Paul Sills with his co-founder Bernie Sahlins. With The Second City improv began to expand beyond Chicago becoming a viable art form practiced throughout the world. While enabling this growth The Second City has also allowed improv to remain a present and integral part of the Chicago performance community. As improv grew with the influence of institutions such as The Second City, and Improv Olympic, improv festivals originated as a way to gather talent, provide performance opportunities, pass on techniques from improv master’s and teach new skills. Over the years festivals have become an essential part of and stabilizing force for the improv community.
Despite the increasing importance of festivals to the improv world and the continuing influence and historical importance of its founding city to the art form, an improv festival had never been established in Chicago. Seeing the need to rectify this situation, two well-established improv performers Jonathan Pitts and Frances Callier created Chicago Comedy Syndicate, Inc. to produce the Chicago Improv Festival. In its first year the festival conducted workshops, presented ensembles over several days to diverse audiences, including a special performance for disabled children. This first year established many of the aims of the festival in providing learning opportunities, presenting new, unique or master improv performers to broad audiences, including continuing the original concept behind the art form of bringing improv to audiences who might not be as well served by traditional theater.
Over the next several years the organization met these aims by presenting new and established improv ensembles during each festival to ever growing audiences, increasing the number of workshops offered to improv students and developing and fostering outreach programs. Among the artists presented by CIF have been nationally recognized improv artists and ensembles from greater Chicago, across the United States and 11 foreign countries, providing the artists the opportunity to get to know and learn from their peers. During the first seven years of the organization, the festival grew from showing 25 ensembles presented to 1,500 audience members over six nights and 75 workshop attendees to presenting 150 ensembles to 8,500 audience members over 10 nights and 300 workshop participants. This growth necessitated the festival expanding from one venue to being held in multiple locations. In 2002 CIF presented a special outreach program in co-operation with the Chicago Sister City program bringing Israeli improv artists to perform at a Chicago Public School. In the festival’s 4th year a program partnership was developed with the city of Chicago to present lectures on improv at the Chicago Cultural Center. The next year saw an expansion of this relationship to include, lunch time demonstration, a “family day,” which includes workshops as well as demonstrations, a short film series and “One World on One Stage,” that presents the international artists participating in the annual festival performing together at the Cultural Center. As part of the 5th annual festival an award ceremony was included allowing the festival to better honor excellence and innovation in the art form and to recognize the achievements of past masters. After the festivals 5th year, Chicago Comedy Syndicate, Inc was dissolved as a corporation. The festival was produced in its 6th year by the sole proprietorship Artsshaman, Inc. Feeling that the festival’s goals and future stability would be better served as a not-for-profit organization Chicago Improv Festival incorporated in the state of Illinois in October of 2003. During its 7th year the organization saw a new level of institutional stabilization, an increase in audience attendance and an expanded outreach program. In a continuing effort to increase CIF’s educational outreach beyond the realm of the annual festival, in 2004 the organization developed a resident improv ensemble, Storybox that tours area grammar schools. Since starting this program Storybox has reached 3,500 school children and is expected to reach 7,000 by the end of the 2007 school year.
Programming having been previously centered around the annual festival, which has to date taken place in the spring, 2005 will be the first year that Chicago Improv Festival’s programming will extend year round. During this year CIF will present the 11th Annual Chicago Improv Festival!
Last Years Acts & Ensembles:
Dates & Venues TBA
Barinholtz & Belushi - Chicago
BASSPROV (with a special guest TBA) - Chicago
Be Frank - Chicago
Boom Chicago - Amsterdam, Netherlands
Chewties - Chicago
Code Duello: Hamilton & Burr - Boston
ComedySportz (with MADtv's Frank Caeti) - Chicago
Cross, Ross & Tubbs - Los Angeles
Dasariski (IO West) - Los Angeles
Dirty Water - Chicago
Duchess - Chicago
The Hook - Salt Lake City
Brendan Hunt - Los Angeles
IMP - Austin/New York
Improv Match Game (IO) - Chicago
Improvised Shakespeare (IO) - Chicago
Johnny Lunchpail - New York
The Josh & Tamra Show - New York
Lurlene - Los Angeles
MADtv Stars - Los Angeles
MADtv Writers on Hiatus - Los Angeles
Messing with a Friend (with MADtv's Ike Barinholtz) - Chicago
Next Impro Company - Tokyo, Japan
Norse Sceneskrekk - Teton, Norway
pHamily (pH Productions) - Chicago
Pimprov - Chicago
Razowsky & Clifford - Los Angeles
The Reckoning (IO) - Chicago
Revolving Madness - San Francisco
Schadenfreude - Chicago
String Theory - Vancouver, Canada
Stubbs (IO) - Chicago
Switchboard - Chicago
The Transactors - Chapel Hill
Underbelly - Los Angeles
Upright Citizens Brigade - Los Angeles/New York
The Washington Generals (IO) - Chicago