Results tagged “delclose”

Lawyer, judge, and former mayoral candidate Eugene Pincham died this morning. He was 82. [S-T]

The best excuse to see TV stars sans makeup, The Tenth Annual Chicago Improv Festival continues through Sunday at The Athenaeum, Park West, and sites all over the north side. (Yes, south siders, they do hate you, get over it…) Chicagoist attended the opening show Monday night at the Cultural Center, featuring the only three performers dedicated (or crazy) enough to perform at all 10 festivals: Joe Bill, Susan Messing, and Mark Sutton. They brought...

Some say Chicago suffers from second city-itis, but there is no denying that we are the kings of the improv mountain. The legacy of Del Close, Second City, and a penchant for working our asses off make Chicago the best place to study improv comedy. Luckily, people are starting to notice.

30 Rock's Scott Adsit

Luckily, Jimmy Carrane and Liz Allen have double-handedly saved the art of improvisation from feeding on itself. Their incredibly popular workshop “Top 10 Blindspots for Improvisers” was a salve on a festering sore. Carrane and Allen expanded the blindspots in a new book titled Improvising Better: A Guide for the Working Improviser. Chapters titled “Spreading yourself too thin” and “Anger is Okay” bring back the simple points of improvisation that get lost in the interest of originality.

After we posted about our little ditty about finding out that Del Close's skull never really ended up at the Goodman like he had requested, we got an interesting comment from someone who knew Del and Charna. Jay Friedheim (who now lives in Hawaii, and apparently is running for Congress?), told us he had a picture of himself, Del, some friends and Timothy Leary all hanging out in Del's apartment. We thought that was a piece of Chicago history and asked if he would send it on.

Man, Charna Halpern cannot get a break. First, she has to change the name of her whole enterprise from Improv Olympic to IO, which would be crappy enough in its own right, if it didn't always make us think of the classic 'Captain EO,' featuring the ever-lovable Michael Jackson. Then, the much hyped IO 25th anniversary show rolls around a little over a year ago, promising fanfare and excitement with famous alums coming home to...

We here at Chicagoist have taken an improv class, or two, or twenty. We actually made most of our friends through these classes, and were just young enough to get caught up in the politics of it all.

Saturday night was the 25th anniversary celebration of the Improv Olympic, we mean, the IO theater. Held at the Chicago Theater and hyped for months, the bill was rife with comedic talent. IO has schooled some of television and film's biggest stars, and they were all coming home to wish IO and its living founder, Charna Halpern, a happy birthday. (Del Close -- who helped Charna found IO when she split from Second City --...

Today�s Trib Loop info is called �Curiosities,� but it seems more like a leftovers. Start off the fun with a quiz, which we�ll admit kind of kicked our ass. Good thing they didn�t ask us about the property at 22 East Jackson, the former Pickwick Lane. There�s still a 19 x 19 stable house there, and it might be up for sale as an �office building with character or even as an office/residence.� Let�s see�it�s 361 square feet, built in 1857 with a third story added in 1907, and no one can find it on the first try? Think it�s already wired?