Rails Comedy

Founding (2021)

Walker Green founded Rails Comedy in 2021 in Washington, D.C., establishing a sketch and improv production company in the Adams Morgan neighborhood. Rails performs at the DC Arts Center, a multi-discipline arts venue that provides the company with a home alongside visual artists, theater makers, and other performers.

Programming

Rails Comedy produces original sketch comedy productions and improv shows from its DC Arts Center base, contributing to a Washington comedy scene that includes several independent companies. The Adams Morgan location places Rails in one of the city's most eclectic creative neighborhoods.

Rails Comedy produces original sketch and improv comedy in Washington D.C.'s Adams Morgan neighborhood, performing at the DC Arts Center.

Rails Comedy presents several named recurring shows at the DC Arts Center. The Merely Players: Improvised Shakespeare applies long-form improv to Elizabethan themes and language. Off Cue is the company's short-form show, drawing on game-based improv structures. Cage Match pits two performing groups against each other in audience-judged competition. Meet Cute: Live Blind Date Show stages improvised scenes built around blind date scenarios with real participants. DC Sketchfest, co-founded by Rails Comedy and the sketch company Bad Medicine, is the first festival dedicated to sketch comedy in the Washington capital region; its March 2024 edition sold out its runs at the DC Arts Center.

Walker Green founded Rails Comedy in 2021 after training at The Second City, iO Theater, and Upright Citizens Brigade Theater, and directing REVOLT at The Clarice Performing Arts Center at the University of Maryland in 2019. Green had also founded Maryland Night Live, a comedy production at the University of Maryland, before establishing Rails as Washington's dedicated sketch and improv venue. The company embedded itself at the DC Arts Center on 18th Street NW in Adams Morgan, positioning itself within an established alternative arts hub rather than seeking a standalone space.

In 2024, Rails Comedy and Bad Medicine co-founded DC Sketchfest, filling a gap in the capital region's festival landscape and establishing Washington as a city with its own dedicated sketch comedy infrastructure. Rails Comedy performers have appeared at the Montreal Sketchfest, Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and Capital Fringe, giving the company an international profile unusual for a venue in only its fourth year of operation. Green's training lineage across Chicago and New York's major improv institutions brought a multi-tradition perspective to the Washington market and positioned Rails Comedy as a bridge between East Coast sketch culture and the broader North American improv community.