Logan Square Improv

Founding (2018)

Alex Prichodko and Andrew Lemna, improvisers originally from Indianapolis who met at Purdue University, moved to Chicago and ran 'The Thursday Show' at Finley Dunne's Tavern in Lakeview for six months: a weekly programme combining improv, sketch, and stand-up that demonstrated their ability to build a consistent audience. Logan Square Improv opened in November 2018 in Logan Square. Within five months of opening the theatre had outgrown its initial space, and the company relocated to its current home at 2825 W. Diversey Avenue.

Recognition and Growth (2019–present)

In 2019, the Chicago Reader named Logan Square Improv Best New Theater Company. The theatre developed a programme of shows running Wednesday through Sunday, most priced at five dollars or free, alongside an eight-week improv course at $175 (among Chicago's lowest rates) and diversity scholarships. Programming expanded to include Spanish-language shows such as Carlos Angeles: Viernes en Logan. No formal audition process was introduced: indie ensembles applied monthly and were booked on merit and availability.

LSI's defining institutional commitment is accessibility for performers and audiences alike. In place of the house team audition hierarchy common to established Chicago improv venues, LSI books rotating independent ensembles each month, allowing performers at all experience levels to perform without institutional affiliation. Admission is set at or near zero for most shows, and the training programme offers Chicago's lowest class fees, with diversity scholarships reducing that further. This model positions LSI as a neighbourhood venue rather than a training pipeline, in deliberate contrast to the North Side institutional mainstream.

The Thursday Show (the founding weekly program established November 1, 2018, combining improv, sketch, and stand-up in a rotating-ensemble format with no permanent house teams), The Sunday Show featuring The Late 90s and Little Heroes (a recurring Sunday-night bill pairing two of Chicago's longest-running independent improv ensembles with a rotating guest team), and a 5th Anniversary Week of Shows in November 2023 marking LSI's founding. LSI's model of booking independent ensembles monthly rather than maintaining fixed house teams distinguishes its programming slate from most Chicago theaters.

Logan Square Improv was named Best New Theater Company by the Chicago Reader in 2019, its first full year of operation, and has been a finalist for Best Venue for Improv every subsequent year. By pricing shows at free to five dollars and classes at $175 per eight-week session with diversity scholarships, LSI established a deliberately accessible alternative to higher-cost training environments at Second City, iO, and other Chicago institutions.

Founded by Alex Prichodko and Andrew Lemna, who each trained at Second City, the Annoyance, and ImprovOlympic before launching LSI, the theater introduced a booking model new to Chicago: independent ensembles rotate through monthly bookings rather than competing for limited house team slots. Newcity Stage credited the theater in 2021 with extending Chicago's improv tradition into the Logan Square and surrounding West Side neighborhoods that the established institutional theaters had not directly served.