The 1950s
9 milestones documented from 1950–1959.
Playwrights Theatre Club Founded at the University of Chicago
Paul Sills, David Shepherd, and Eugene Troobnick founded the Playwrights Theatre Club at the University of Chicago on June 23, 1953. The company operated as a classical repertory theatre in the Reynolds Club Theatre on campus, presenting European drama including Brecht, Molière, and Shakespeare to an audience of students and faculty. In two seasons it presented approximately thirty productions and assembled the ensemble that would go on to found the Compass Players in 1955.
Playwrights Theatre Club Closes Following Building-Code Violations
The Playwrights Theatre Club was shut down in 1955 following building-code violations after two seasons of classical repertory work at the University of Chicago. The closure brought the company's programme to an abrupt end, but the ensemble it had assembled immediately reorganized around David Shepherd's plan for an improvisational company. The Compass Players opened weeks later, in July 1955, at 1152 E. 55th Street in Hyde Park.
Mike Nichols and Elaine May Join the Compass Players
Mike Nichols and Elaine May begin performing together with the Compass Players, developing the improvisational partnership that makes them one of the most celebrated comedy duos of the twentieth century. Their scenes demonstrate a new level of psychological sophistication in improvised performance, drawing on character, subtext, and the unspoken tensions between people. Their work with the Compass sets the standard for character-based improv comedy.
Compass Players Founded in Chicago, Becoming the First Professional Improvisational Theatre in the United States
David Shepherd and Paul Sills founded the Compass Players in July 1955 at the Compass Tavern at 1152 E. 55th Street in Chicago's Hyde Park neighbourhood. The company was the first professional improvisational theatre in the United States, developing the scenario format and audience-suggestion methods that became the foundation of American improv. Its opening ensemble included Roger Bowen, Andrew Duncan, Elaine May, and Barbara Harris, with Mike Nichols and Shelley Berman joining shortly after.
The Compass Players Conclude Their Final Season and Close in Chicago
The Compass Players close after a brief but transformative run. The company's dissolution scatters its alumni across the country, particularly to New York, where they carry the practices and spirit of ensemble improvisation into new contexts. The Compass's approach to character-based, narrative improvisation becomes the template from which The Second City and dozens of subsequent companies take their cue.
Compass Players Open at the Crystal Palace in St. Louis
Theodore J. Flicker directed a St. Louis branch of the Compass Players at the Crystal Palace cabaret in 1957, assembling an ensemble that included Mike Nichols, Elaine May, and Del Close. The engagement consolidated the improvisational methods developed in Chicago before the Compass Players concluded their work in 1958.
Dudley Riggs Establishes the Brave New Workshop in Minneapolis
Dudley Riggs, a fifth-generation circus aerialist, established the Instant Theatre Company and settled permanently in Minneapolis in 1958. In 1961, the company was renamed the Brave New Workshop — a reference to Aldous Huxley's Brave New World — and moved to 2605 Hennepin Avenue, which became its home for four decades. The company went on to produce nearly 400 original satirical revues.
Compass Players Dissolves, Its Ensemble Dispersing to Found The Second City and Nichols and May
The Compass Players ceased operations by 1958, ending approximately three years of improvisational performance in Chicago and St. Louis. Mike Nichols and Elaine May formed their duo and moved to New York City, performing material developed during their Compass years. Paul Sills, Bernie Sahlins, and Howard Alk founded The Second City in Chicago in December 1959, carrying the Compass's improvisational methods into a durable institutional form.
The Second City Opens Its Doors at 1340 North Wells Street in Chicago
On December 16, The Second City opened at 1340 North Wells Street in Chicago’s Old Town neighborhood, founded by Paul Sills, Howard Alk, and Bernie Sahlins. Named after a pair of New Yorker magazine articles satirizing Chicago, the theater staged a revue format alternating scripted sketch material with improvised scenes driven by audience suggestion. The Second City established the model of ensemble comedy built on improvisation that would define American comedy for decades.