July 4, 2005

BY RUMMANA HUSSAIN Staff Reporter

In Chicago, laughter has always been taken seriously.

The city is a legendary training ground for the country's best comics and home to luminaries like John Belushi and Bill Murray.

But most probably don't know that modern day improv comedy was likely conceived in an institution usually associated with geniuses rather than guffaws: the University of Chicago.

On Tuesday, the Hyde Park-based school will celebrate the 50th anniversary of what is believed to have been the first improv show by re-creating the premiere performance of The Compass, a small group of University of Chicago students, alums and friends credited with inventing ad-lib cabaret theater.

Improv throughout the ages Improv traces as far back as 16th century Italy, where "commedia dell'arte" traveling street performers would entertain crowds. However, it was "The Compass" that spawned improv as we know it today, influencing popular comedy such as SCTV, Saturday Night Live and HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm." 1955: The first modern-day improv theater show is performed by The Compass in Chicago. The troupe, formerly with the Playwrights Theatre Club, used "Theater Games" techniques designed by Viola Spolin. Even after Chicago's Compass dissolved in 1959, other Compass companies opened in New York, St. Louis and Boston. 1958: The longest-running satirical theater in the country, Minneapolis' Brave New Workshop, opens 1959: Second City is formed by Chicago Compass members. Second Cities open in Toronto in 1973 and Las Vegas in 2001. The company has training centers in L.A. and New York and a new Detroit Second City is schedule to open in July. 1963: The fabled sketch comedy troupe The Committee forms in San Francisco 1968: While in San Francisco, famed Second City director Del Close starts development on "The Harold," a method of long form of improvisation. 1974: ImprovOlympic debuts in New York. ImprovOlympic Theaters were also formed in Toronto in 1978 and in Chicago in the early 1980s. 1974: Keith Johnstone introduces the narrative form of improvisation in England. That same year, L.A.'s Groundlings debuts. 1984: ComedySportz opens in Milwaukee. There are other ComedySportz in the country, including Chicago. 1987: Annoyance Theatre opens in Chicago. 1995: The first Big Stinkin' International Improv & Sketch Comedy Festival is held in Austin, Texas. This is also the time when the Upright Citizens Brigade leaves Chicago for New York. 1998: Chicago Improv Festival was founded. Source: Chicago Improv Festival director Jonathan Pitts and Sheldon Patinkin, Second City's artistic consultant and chairman of Columbia College's Theater Department.

Broadway too 'anemic'

The predecessor to the renowned Second City evolved at a time when the burgeoning "beat generation" burst onto the scene, challenging relatively conservative, formulaic forms of literature and art. U. of C. students embraced this rebelliousness and often engaged in passionate debates, establishing an environment ripe for creative forces like The Compass, founding member and author David Shepherd said.

"We got students, graduates and employees from the University of Chicago who had common point of view that wasn't found anywhere else," said Shepherd who traveled from Belchertown, Mass., to attend the tribute of the July 5, 1955, production by the university's Off-Off Campus troupe.

"You make discoveries doing improv, and the tenor of the work is very quick and spontaneous. It's not bogged down with long speeches that are recited with no feeling."

Because he felt Broadway was too "anemic" and geared to a limited audience, Shepherd, now 80, left the Big Apple for the Midwest, hoping to establish plays that would appeal to the common man.

He hit gold when teaming up with U. of C. grad and Compass co-founder Paul Sills, who's artist mother Viola Spolin introduced the pair to improv exercises she developed during her depression-era work with children's theater.

Soon, crowds were rushing to a university area bar to catch the group's work, which Shepherd described as an "upside down layer cake full of irony."

The Compass' first show featured an eight-member cast, including screenwriter Elaine May and actress Barbara Harris. The sketches started off with "The Living News," a performance based on items taken from that day's Sun-Times. The second half of the show is loosely centered on a Sills written piece about man who sells his wife to a steelworker he meets at a bar. The show is capped off with audience participation.

"It's truly shared art form between audience and performer," said Steve Lund, a former Off-Off Campus who will co-direct Tuesday's show.

Reunion in November

Unlike jazz and blues, which was perfected in the city but did not originate here, improv is truly a Chicago original, said Jonathan Pitts, the anniversary performance's producer and Chicago Improv Festival executive director. "Improv theater is Chicago's only indigenous art form," he said.

Shepherd is planning to return to Chicago in November for a Compass reunion. Other Chicago Compass alumni include noted director Mike Nichols.