IMPROVOLYMPIC When Charna Halpern founded the ImprovOlympic Theater across from ...
/b>When Charna Halpern founded the ImprovOlympic Theater across from Wrigley Field in Chicago more than 20 years ago, few people even knew what improvisational comedy was. It was a fringe form of theater that true actors looked down upon. The masses yawned, preferring rehearsed punch lines and lacking the patience for unscripted, long-form scenes.
Audiences came around. The theater's popularity was buoyed by the success of many of Halpern's former students who polished their improv skills under her tutelage.
"Conan, Mad TV, SNL-they're all ImprovOlympic people," says the 51-year-old Halpern.
Together with the late Del Close and Kim Howard Johnson, Halpern penned Truth in Comedy, the must-have bible for improvisers. The theater grew, and eventually Halpern opened up ImprovOlympic West in Los Angeles. The culmination of her efforts will come this September, when she plans to open another ancillary stage in New York. Acting and writing classes could begin as early as June.
Halpern has not yet decided on a venue, though she's considering the 90-seat side stages in the newly opened Laugh Factory. Jamie Masada, who opened the original Laugh Factory in Hollywood 25 years ago, invited Halpern to bring her company to his new venue off of Times Square. The 14,000-square-foot-space, formerly a strip bar, features several smaller studios for extra shows and classes, but its cocktail-lounge feel is more upscale than that of typical improv venues. Halpern said she's not too concerned about the "feel" of the space or its location on a tourist-infested corner-"our energy will overpower it" -but also added that she hasn't ruled out other theaters further downtown.
Halpern originally had no desire to bring the ImprovOlympic to New York. "A lot of people were begging us to come out here, but there was the Upright Citizens Brigade already doing the work that we do."
With the UCB and People's Improv Theater (both founded by Halpern's former students), as well as Chicago City Limits and Second City already offering classes and comedy in the city, is she worried about a saturation of the market?
"Not at all," she says. "There're lots of different companies in Chicago and we all work together. My people here work at Second City and vice versa. [In Los Angeles] Groundlings people take classes at ImprovOlympic West. Actors want work. They need as many stages as possible."
Though she's not booking shows this far ahead, Halpern promises to bring to New York ImprovOlympic mainstays like the musical-comedy Baby Wants Candy and the political improv show Whirled News Tonight.
More important, Halpern is hoping to bring her Chicago brand of humor to New York's stages.
"We do slower work. It's more of a thinking man's genre," she says of ImprovOlympic's approach. "There's less wit and more emphasis on relationships."