Steel City Improv Theater

Founding (2010)

Justin Zell and Kasey Daley, who had spent a decade in New York City's improv and theatre community, returned to Pittsburgh in 2010 and began teaching long-form improv out of a community center in the Lawrenceville neighborhood. Their philosophy centered on "Listen, Commit, and Play" as the foundational principles of ensemble work.

Permanent Venues (2011 and 2014)

The company opened its first 40-seat theater in East Deutschtown in 2011, providing a dedicated performance home for the growing Pittsburgh improv community. In 2014 Steel City relocated to an 80-seat venue in the Shadyside neighborhood, expanding capacity for its classes, shows, and corporate workshops.

Pandemic Closure and Return

The theater closed temporarily from March 2020 through July 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic before resuming its weekend show, class, and corporate workshop schedule. The company continues to operate in Shadyside as Pittsburgh's primary dedicated long-form improv institution.

Steel City Improv Theater presents long-form improv centered on ensemble listening, commitment, and play. Zell and Daley's New York City backgrounds inform a training curriculum that prioritizes the fundamentals of ensemble work over games-based short-form. The company serves Pittsburgh performers through structured class tracks and house ensemble programming.

Steel City Improv Theater's primary recurring formats are House Team Night, held every weekend, in which the theater's rotating roster of long-form house teams performs full sets for paying audiences, and the SCIT Improv Jam, a free-admission open jam held every Friday at 9:30 PM that is open both to performers and to audience members who want to watch. The theater also presented the 3FER, a multi-team showcase documented in its archive. Among the ensemble groups that emerged from SCIT's house team program, Well Known Strangers premiered on October 8, 2012, performed every Monday night as part of the Totally Free Mondays series, and became the first SCIT house team to have its original six-month run extended.

Steel City Improv Theater was built around the conviction that Pittsburgh could sustain a full-time New York-style long-form improv institution. Justin Zell and Kasey Daley met at The PIT in New York City and returned to Pittsburgh in 2010 to begin teaching from a community center in the Lawrenceville neighborhood. They opened a 40-seat dedicated space in East Deutschtown in 2011, then relocated to an 80-seat venue in the Shadyside neighborhood in 2014, where the theater has remained. The theater closed from March 2020 through July 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic and resumed full programming thereafter. Zell serves as Education Director and Daley as Artistic Director, and together they have taught more than 5,000 students in the art of improvisation. Corporate workshop clients have included Bayer, Carnegie Mellon University, Cornell University, and UPMC, establishing the theater as a credible applied-improv resource in a major research and medical hub. The training curriculum, built on the ethos of 'Listen. Commit. Play.', has been the foundation for dozens of house teams and independent groups that have shaped Pittsburgh's long-form comedy ecosystem over the theater's fifteen-year history.