Ari Voukidis

Ari Voukidis is a Boston-born writer, improviser, actor, and teacher who joined the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in 1997 and spent eleven years performing on Harold Night house teams, including Pound and multiple iterations of DeCoster, while teaching at UCB in New York and Los Angeles for more than twenty years. He co-created Wicked F***in' Queeyah, an annual Del Close Marathon ensemble show, with Amy Poehler and Rob Corddry. His sketch duo Mark and Ari, with partner Mark Sarian, received a Time Out New York Critic's Pick for their show Loft at UCB Chelsea and produced a comedy short directed by John Landis that appeared on The Tonight Show. His writing credits include SNL's Weekend Update and Ring Nation with Wanda Sykes (120 episodes).

Career

Voukidis joined the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York in 1997, making him one of the institution's early-era members. He performed on Harold Night house teams for eleven years. His documented team affiliations include Pound (iterations 3 and 4), alongside Rob Corddry, Brian Huskey, Seth Morris, John Bowie, Dyna Moe, and Will Berson, and multiple iterations of DeCoster, the team named after UCB teacher Matt DeCoster. DeCoster rosters included Eric Bernat, Eugene Cordero, Kirk Damato, Matt DeCoster, Pam Murphy, Megan Neuringer, DC Pierson, and Ryan Karels, with his wife Betsy Stover joining in a later iteration. He also performed in ASSSSCAT, UCB's all-star flagship Harold show.

Voukidis co-created Wicked F***in' Queeyah with Amy Poehler and Rob Corddry as a Boston-themed long-form improv show presented annually at the Del Close Marathon in New York. The ensemble, composed of performers of New England origin or affiliation, includes Jackie Clarke, Amey Goerlich, Jason Mantzoukas, Michael Delaney, Jessica Allen, Rachel Dratch, Jamie Denbo, and Steve Buck. The show is organized around Boston cultural identity and audience participation.

With sketch partner Mark Sarian, Voukidis formed the duo Mark and Ari, whose show Loft ran at UCB Chelsea for a year and received a Time Out New York Critic's Pick designation. They created The Mark and Ari 3-Minute Sketch Show and a sketch comedy web series. Their comedy short Small World was directed by John Landis and appeared on The Tonight Show after originating as a finalist entry in the Great Sketch Experiment competition, a national contest run by JibJab and Verizon in which Mark and Ari were selected from 50 troupes. The short film Sosi (2019), co-written by Voukidis and Sarian and directed by Heather Fink, won the Award of Merit for Best Short Film at the IndieFEST Film Awards 2019.

Voukidis taught at UCB in both New York and Los Angeles for more than twenty years. He co-hosted Hot For Teacher: The UCB Faculty Show weekly at UCB East with his wife Betsy Stover. He also taught and directed the indie improv group Harsh, and performed regularly at Magnet Theater in New York with long-form shows What a Year and Lights Out Shirley.

His television writing credits include SNL's Weekend Update and Ring Nation with Wanda Sykes (120 episodes). He has appeared on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, The Tonight Show, the UCB Comedy Central series, and VH1 clip shows including Best Week Ever and I Love the '80s. He has contributed humor writing to BuzzFeed over multiple years.

In June 2014, Voukidis appeared on Jeopardy and, unable to win, wrote 'Who is this handsome gentleman?' with an arrow pointing at himself as his Final Jeopardy response, prompting host Alex Trebek to respond 'Good for you, Ari.' The moment was covered by TIME, HuffPost, NBC News, the Today show, and multiple comedy outlets.

Historical Context

UCB's Harold Night ecosystem during the early 2000s, the period in which Voukidis performed on Pound and DeCoster, was producing the ensemble of performers who would define the UCB alumni generation prominent in sketch television and studio comedy through the 2010s. Rob Corddry (The Daily Show correspondent), DC Pierson (DERRICK Comedy), Brian Huskey, Pam Murphy, and Megan Neuringer all passed through the Harold Night teams on which Voukidis performed. DeCoster, in particular, occupied anchor-team status in UCB's Harold Night programming across multiple iterations spanning more than a decade.

Wicked F***in' Queeyah, co-created with Amy Poehler and Rob Corddry, has become one of the Del Close Marathon's most consistently attended annual performances, functioning as an institutional reunion for the New England-origin cohort within UCB's New York community. Its existence as an annual Marathon fixture documents how regional identity operated within the UCB ensemble network, creating affinity-based ensemble structures alongside the institutional team structure.

Voukidis's career as both a Harold Night performer of long tenure and a longtime UCB faculty member places him in the generation of practitioners who trained under UCB's founders and subsequently transmitted those methods to the generation of performers who would reach national entertainment platforms in the 2010s.

Teaching Philosophy

Voukidis's documented teaching position is minimal in the public record, but one formulation from his UCB coaching practice has circulated in improv instruction contexts: 'There's no substitute for time.' The observation frames long-form improv skill as cumulative rather than mechanically teachable, positioning repeated ensemble performance over extended periods as the primary vehicle of development. His eleven years on Harold Night teams, followed by more than twenty years of UCB teaching, exemplify the career pattern his own maxim describes.

Legacy

Voukidis is one of the longest-tenured Harold Night performers in UCB New York's documented history, with an eleven-year run across multiple house teams spanning the institution's most formative period. His twenty-plus years of UCB teaching placed him as a faculty continuity figure across the generational transitions of UCB's student body from the early 2000s through the institution's Los Angeles expansion.

Wicked F***in' Queeyah, co-created with Amy Poehler and Rob Corddry, has been a Del Close Marathon fixture for more than two decades, functioning as the most prominent Boston-identity ensemble show in UCB's annual programming. The show's ensemble has included performers from multiple generations of the UCB community, making it one of the DCM's most persistently documented recurring productions.

Early Life and Training

Voukidis is from Boston, Massachusetts. Before entering comedy, he worked as a newspaper reporter at the New York Daily News, the Boston Herald, and smaller dailies and community papers across the United States. He was named New York's Funniest Reporter. He subsequently contributed to magazines including SPY, Entertainment Weekly, Jane, GQ, Esquire, and Grantland, and served as an advice columnist for YM magazine. He joined UCB in 1997.

Personal Life

Voukidis is from Boston, Massachusetts, and is married to Betsy Stover, a fellow UCB performer and teacher. They have two sons, Rex and Ajax. He is based in Los Angeles.