Alexis Simpson

Alexis Simpson is a Philadelphia-born performer, director, writer, and comedy educator who co-founded the Philly Improv Theater (PHIT) in 2005 and served as its inaugural Artistic Director beginning in 2008, making her one of the architects of Philadelphia's organized improv training infrastructure. She subsequently relocated to Los Angeles, where she has built a parallel career as a television actress and as a performer, director, and staff writer with Story Pirates, the children's comedy ensemble whose podcast has accumulated over eighty-five million downloads. Her career spans more than two decades of ensemble improv work across Philadelphia, Chicago, and Los Angeles.

Career

Simpson began improvising in 2000 at Haverford College, where she co-founded a student sketch and longform improv ensemble initially called Sketchy Players. The group renamed itself The Throng in 2003 when it committed to longform formats. The Throng performed at the Philadelphia Improv Festival alongside established ensembles and became one of the early markers of organized college improv in the region.

In 2005, Simpson co-founded the Philly Improv Theater (PHIT) alongside Greg Maughan, Bobbi Block, and Matt Holmes. PHIT was publicly announced at the First Annual Philadelphia Improv Festival on November 4, 2005, with classes beginning in January 2006. In 2008, Simpson became PHIT's first paid staff member and was appointed its inaugural Artistic Director. She created the PHIT house team The Moops in September 2008 and served as its director. She held the Artistic Director role through at least 2016, during which PHIT developed into Philadelphia's primary dedicated improv training institution.

During the Philadelphia period, Simpson also performed with Rare Bird Show, The Real Housewives of Philadelphia, and Ladies and Gentlemen, three Philadelphia-based longform ensembles. In 2009, she co-founded the Philadelphia Joke Initiative, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit comedy advocacy organization. She completed the Arden Theatre Company's Professional Apprentice Program in 2007.

After relocating to Los Angeles, Simpson trained at UCB Theater LA (completing the Longform Improv 101-401 curriculum and performing on multiple Harold teams), iO West (where she performed on Harold and house teams including the ensemble EXTRA STRENGTH), Beverly Hills Playhouse (Advanced Scene Study), and UCB Theater LA's Sketch Comedy program. She performed in ComedySportz Los Angeles as both a Main Company performer and director, and performed with The Pack Theater, where she played the Rogue character in Drunkards and Dragons, described as Los Angeles's longest-running fantasy improv show. She also performed as an understudy with The Second City Los Angeles.

Festival credits include the Del Close Marathon, Chicago Improv Festival, Dirty South Improv Festival, ComedySportz World Championships, Toronto Improv Festival, and Philadelphia Improv Festival.

For more than ten years Simpson has been an actor, director, and writer with Story Pirates, an ensemble that adapts stories written by children into live comedy shows, podcasts, and television. She is a staff writer for the Story Pirates podcast, which has accumulated more than eighty-five million downloads and won the 2020 iHeartRadio Award for Best Kids and Family Podcast.

Television credits include recurring appearances in Total Eclipse and co-starring roles in S.W.A.T. (CBS), Hollywood (Netflix), Jimmy Kimmel Live (ABC), American Crime Story (FX), and several other network and cable productions. Film credits include John Bronco (Hulu) and AFI productions including Hello from Taiwan and the thesis film Wendy.

Historical Context

The founding of Philly Improv Theater in 2005 marked a pivotal moment in Philadelphia's improv development. Before PHIT, Philadelphia had no dedicated improv training institution comparable to Chicago's iO or Second City or New York's UCB Theater. The city had an active amateur scene, but no organized curriculum, no house team system, and no central institutional home for the form.

Simpson and her co-founders created PHIT as both a performance venue and a training school, explicitly modeling its structure on the training institutions of Chicago and New York. Her appointment as inaugural Artistic Director in 2008 and the creation of The Moops as the first PHIT house team gave the institution a directorial identity and a performing ensemble, the two pillars on which improv training programs have historically been built.

The trajectory from Haverford student ensemble co-founder (2000) to professional theatre co-founder and Artistic Director (2005-2008) to Story Pirates staff writer and Los Angeles television actress documents a career pattern specific to the generation of improvisers who built regional training infrastructure in cities outside Chicago and New York during the 2000s before pursuing screen performance careers as improv's mainstream visibility increased.

Teaching Philosophy

Simpson's tenure as PHIT Artistic Director was explicitly institutional in its orientation: building a training curriculum, establishing a house team system, and creating the organizational structures that allow an improv theatre to develop performers over time rather than curating individual talent. Her creation of The Moops as PHIT's first house team reflects a pedagogical commitment to the ensemble model as the basic unit of improv development. Her continued work with Story Pirates, which trains writers to adapt children's voice into performable material, extends that ensemble-first approach into a cross-disciplinary context.

Legacy

Simpson is one of the founders of Philadelphia's dedicated improv infrastructure. PHIT, which she co-founded and led as inaugural Artistic Director, became the city's primary improv training institution and the organizational context in which a generation of Philadelphia improvisers developed their practice. The house team system she established, beginning with The Moops in September 2008, gave PHIT the institutional form that sustained it beyond its founding generation.

Her subsequent career in Los Angeles, spanning iO West, UCB Theater LA, ComedySportz, The Pack Theater, and The Second City, places her among the generation of regionally trained improvisers who carried their experience into the principal markets and whose careers document how skills built in Philadelphia, Indianapolis, Austin, or Seattle translate into the institutional contexts of the major comedy centers.

For the archive, Simpson represents the 2000s wave of improv institution-builders in American cities outside the established centers, practitioners who identified the structural gap in their city's comedy ecosystem and built the training infrastructure to fill it.

Early Life and Training

Simpson studied neuroscience at Haverford College and worked in a university neuroscience research lab before pivoting to performance. She began improvising in 2000, during her college years, co-founding a student ensemble that would become the foundation of her comedy career. She has described her decision to pursue performance professionally as recognizing that nothing structural was preventing it.

Personal Life

Simpson grew up in the Philadelphia area and has been based in Los Angeles since relocating there to pursue screen performance. She splits professional time between the two cities. She is a SAG-AFTRA member. She has been publicly sober and has credited sobriety with increased creative output. She holds advanced equestrian skills including dressage, English, show jumping, and Western riding.