ComedySportz San Jose

Founding (1987)

Jeff Kramer founded ComedySportz San Jose in September 1987, posting flyers at San Jose State University and Santa Clara University to recruit the company's first players. Jeff Ringgold and Tom Gough were among the original cast members. The company premiered at the Bold Knight restaurant and became Silicon Valley's first sustained improv comedy show.

Programming and Venues

ComedySportz San Jose moved through several venues over the decades, including Camera 3 Cinema at 288 S. 2nd Street in downtown San Jose, before settling at its current home at 5440-D Thornwood Drive in South San Jose. The company performs Fridays and Saturdays, presenting the standard ComedySportz two-team competitive format in which audience members serve as judges.

Recognition and Community Engagement

In 2006 ComedySportz San Jose won the ComedySportz World Championship. The company has performed at Montreal's Just for Laughs Festival and been named Best Local Theatre by Metro Newspaper. ComedySportz San Jose has supported Ronald McDonald House, Second Harvest Foodbank, and YMCA's Project Cornerstone through charitable programming. The High School League operates with eighteen or more participating schools across multiple area districts and is among the largest in the ComedySportz franchise network.

ComedySportz San Jose presents the competitive short-form improv format established by Dick Chudnow in Milwaukee in 1984, with two teams competing for audience approval through improv games. The company operates with an explicit family-friendly commitment and no religious or political content. Its High School League extends the ComedySportz model into education across Silicon Valley.

ComedySportz San Jose's core show is the Comedy Match, a competitive short-form format in which two teams improvise scenes and games scored by a referee with audience input, running every Friday and Saturday. The High School League, one of the largest student improv programs in the country, holds its own competitive matches throughout the school year, drawing teams from across Silicon Valley. Corporate applied improv workshops for Silicon Valley companies and performances at San Jose Giants games have extended the company's reach beyond its home venue. In 2006 the company won the ComedySportz World Championship, and it has also performed at the Just for Laughs Festival in Montreal.

ComedySportz San Jose was assembled by Jeff Kramer, who had helped build the Madison franchise while completing an MFA at the University of Wisconsin-Madison before Dick Chudnow asked him to launch the West Coast location. Kramer recruited initial players through flyers at San Jose State and Santa Clara Universities, rehearsed in a small costume shop on Sunday mornings, and opened at the Bold Knight restaurant in September 1987 with a core team that also included Jeff Ringgold and Tom Gough. In its first five years the company performed across eleven different venues while supplementing income with birthday party bookings, and in 1992 opened its own ComedySportz Arena in a converted gym on El Camino Real in Santa Clara, where it operated for eleven years. By 2010 the company had completed more than 5,000 shows, making it the longest-running show in the South Bay, and it has been recognized as Best Local Theatre by Metro Newspaper and received a formal city commendation on its 20th anniversary.

The High School League program, which grew into one of the largest student improv competitions in the nation, became the company's most significant community contribution, providing training and performance infrastructure for high school students throughout Silicon Valley. The 25th anniversary celebration directed proceeds to Ronald McDonald House at Stanford, Second Harvest Foodbank, and the YMCA's Project Cornerstone. The 2006 World Championship win brought national recognition to the franchise and placed it among the most decorated CSz operations outside the Milwaukee home base.