Betsy Stover

Stover's training lineage connects Minneapolis regional improv practice, through Brave New Workshop and ComedySportz, to the full UCB method directly from its four founders, making her biography a map of how the UCB approach was absorbed and transmitted by practitioners who came from outside the founding New York cohort. Her arrival at UCB in 1997 places her among the earliest generation of performers to train comprehensively within the UCB system as it was being established, before the theatre's curriculum had been formalized into its later published form.

Her six Harold teams over her New York tenure reflect sustained participation in UCB's competitive team structure across a period that shaped much of its legacy in long-form improv. The inclusion of Rob Riggle and Paul Scheer on Cowbot places her among performers who moved from UCB to significant screen careers, a common trajectory in the mid-2000s. Her DeCoster team with Ari Voukydis, who she later married, illustrates how the Harold Night roster system also functioned as a community-formation mechanism, pairing future long-term collaborators in shared ensemble work.

Amy Poehler's role in Stover's development illustrates the mentorship culture that defined UCB's early years, in which senior performers passed practical and professional knowledge downward to the next generation of trainees. Stover has cited Poehler as a formative influence from the age of nineteen, and Poehler's later direction of one of Stover's Soundtracks Live productions extended that relationship into a direct creative collaboration.

Her two decades of teaching at UCB from 2001 through the pandemic places her within the faculty generation that built the Training Center into one of the most influential improv education institutions in the United States.

Stover taught at the Upright Citizens Brigade Training Center from 2001 through the pandemic, a span of more than twenty years. She co-hosted Form Night with Monika Smith, a recurring UCB show dedicated to exploring improvised long forms, which functioned as both a performance venue and a pedagogical demonstration of structural variety within the long-form tradition. Her background spanning Minneapolis regional improv training and the full UCB curriculum gave her teaching a dual grounding in both short-form competitive practice and long-form ensemble work.

Stover's twenty-plus years on the UCB faculty represent one of the longer sustained teaching commitments in that institution's history, placing her among the instructors whose cumulative influence shaped thousands of students across the 2000s and 2010s. Her Harold Night teams across the decade included members who went on to significant screen careers, including Rob Riggle and Paul Scheer from the Cowbot roster. Her sketch partnership with Katty Biscone, with shows directed by Rob Corddry and Julie Brister, contributed to the UCB's performance culture during the period when sketch comedy was most actively integrated with long-form ensemble work at the theatre. Her marriage to Ari Voukydis, another long-serving UCB performer, links two significant teaching and performing careers at that institution.

Betsy Stover was born and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She began improvising in 1994 through the Minneapolis improv and comedy community, training at Brave New Workshop and ComedySportz Twin Cities before relocating to New York City to pursue performance at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre.

Stover is married to Ari Voukydis, a fellow UCB performer and teacher. They have three sons, including Rex and Ajax. The family is based in Los Angeles, where Stover relocated after her New York UCB career.