Curious Comedy Theater

Founding (2008)

Stacey Hallal founded Curious Comedy Theater in 2008 as a nonprofit in Portland, Oregon, establishing the city's only comedy-focused nonprofit organization. The company located at 5225 NE Martin Luther King Boulevard in Northeast Portland, also operating the Curious Comedy Annex at 5229 NE MLK Boulevard.

POW! Literacy Program

Curious Comedy developed the POW! program, which uses improv games to teach reading and writing in Portland-area schools. The organization also runs community programs for seniors and underserved communities, extending its nonprofit mission beyond performance.

Programming and Training

Curious Comedy presents improv, sketch comedy, and stand-up through shows including Showdown and the All Jane Comedy Festival. Its five-level training center serves adult and youth students.

Curious Comedy Theater operates at the intersection of comedy performance and community service, combining a five-level training program and weekly shows with the POW! school literacy outreach program and services for seniors and underserved communities. Its nonprofit status positions it as Portland's comedy education institution.

The Curious Comedy Showdown is a weekly competitive improv show pitting Portland improvisers against each other in a bracket-style format running Friday and Saturday evenings. All Jane No Dick is an annual all-female comedy festival showcasing women in improv, sketch, and stand-up from across the country, addressing the underrepresentation of women in comedy writing rooms. The POW! (Play on Words) program sends teaching artists into Portland-area schools to use improv games for literacy instruction, with student stories then adapted for the stage by the theater's resident ensemble. New Memories brings improv workshops to Alzheimer's patients with documented improvements in participant mood and mobility. The theater also presents improvised Shakespeare and musical improv as recurring show formats across its Main Stage and Annex Theater spaces.

Stacey Hallal spent roughly ten years preparing to open a nonprofit comedy theater in Portland, studying at Chicago's Second City conservatory, writing program, and directing program, where she also assistant-directed a main-stage production, before returning to the Pacific Northwest in 2008 to open Curious Comedy Theater on limited resources and community goodwill. The organization became Portland's only 501(c)3 nonprofit dedicated exclusively to comedy and built out a five-level improv training program alongside recurring shows in improv, sketch, and stand-up. In 2016 the theater partnered with the Hillsboro Police Department to train officers using improv techniques for mental health crisis response, extending the organization's community impact into public safety training.

The theater's three outreach programs, POW! literacy for youth, New Memories for dementia patients, and the All Jane No Dick festival, reflect a commitment to using comedy as a social instrument. The resident ensemble of roughly fifteen performers, led by Hallal as Artistic Director, brings student stories from the POW! workshops to the main stage, creating a direct link between community education and professional performance. Staff including Skelly Harrington as Director of Education, Community, and DEI, and Blake Wales as Director of Youth and Family Programs, have expanded BIPOC-focused improv initiatives and free access programming across the Portland metro area.