Brian Wohl

Brian Wohl is a Chicago-trained improviser, stand-up comedian, and co-founding member of Octavarius, the independent improv group formed in April 2009 from alumni of Illinois State University's Improv Mafia program. Octavarius was voted Best Improv/Sketch Group by the Chicago Reader in 2011 and 2012. Wohl has served as the group's Vice President of Live Entertainment and has expanded his performing career into stand-up comedy and comedy music, opening for the band Lewberger and appearing as Flim Flam the Sausage Man in the sold-out Off Broadway musical Lewberger and The Wizard of Friendship. He co-hosts Smoke Show on the Try Guys channel.

Career

Brian Wohl trained as an improviser at Illinois State University, graduating in 2007. His training took place within ISU's Improv Mafia, the university improv program that produced a cohort of performers who would subsequently form one of Chicago's most recognized independent improv groups. Wohl's connection to fellow ISU alumnus Keith Habersberger, later a founding member of The Try Guys, dated from their college years and would later generate collaborative opportunities in Wohl's performing career.

In April 2009, Wohl co-founded Octavarius along with other ISU Improv Mafia alumni. The group described itself as an independent Chicago improv ensemble whose membership drew primarily from across five years of the ISU program. Octavarius developed a production aesthetic characterized by theatrical staging and themed long-form shows, including shows built around professional wrestling, an Oprah-based concept, and holiday genre pieces such as How Hans Gruber Stole Christmas, which performed at the ComedySportz Theatre Chicago in December 2010. The group's production ambitions and character-driven performance style distinguished it from the more stripped-down short-form and Harold-format ensembles that dominated Chicago's independent improv landscape during the same period.

In 2010, Octavarius was named runner-up for Best Improv/Sketch Group in the Chicago Reader's annual Best of Chicago readers' poll. In 2011, the group won the Chicago Reader Best Improv/Sketch Group award, and they repeated the recognition in 2012, producing consecutive years of recognition in one of the American Midwest's most prominent alternative media awards. Wohl served as the group's Vice President of Live Entertainment, a role that encompassed production responsibilities for the group's increasingly elaborate staged shows. Octavarius also toured nationally and performed at the University of Maine at Presque Isle, extending the group's reach beyond Chicago's local improv circuit.

Alongside his work with Octavarius, Wohl developed a parallel career as a touring stand-up comedian. He performed internationally, including at the Just for Laughs Festival in Vancouver and in Toronto, Canada. His stand-up career brought him into sustained association with Lewberger, the comedy band consisting of Keith Habersberger, Alex Lewis, and Hughie Stone Fish. Wohl opened for Lewberger, providing fifteen to twenty minutes of stand-up before the band's performances, and appeared as Flim Flam the Sausage Man in Lewberger and The Wizard of Friendship, the comedy group's sold-out Off Broadway musical. The Lewberger collaboration extended his visibility to audiences built through The Try Guys' YouTube platform.

Wohl has co-hosted Smoke Show, a podcast on the Try Guys YouTube channel, which has expanded his audience beyond live performance into digital media. He has also appeared in videos produced for The Try Guys, BuzzFeed, and I Made America, and in the feature film WTF: The World Thumbwrestling Federation. His profile at the I Made America production company lists him as a live performance producer, reflecting his expanded role as a producing practitioner alongside his performing career.

Historical Context

Wohl's career reflects the institutional trajectory of university-based improv programs in the American Midwest during the 2000s, a period when programs at Illinois State University, Ohio State University, and other regional institutions were producing cohorts of performers who organized into independent post-collegiate ensembles rather than enrolling in the established training programs of Second City or iO Chicago. The Improv Mafia at Illinois State and the Octavarius ensemble it produced represented a distinct organizational model: alumni-cohort groups that maintained their social bonds from university performance programs and collectively relocated to Chicago's independent improv scene without passing through the traditional Chicago training program hierarchy.

Octavarius's consecutive Chicago Reader Best Improv/Sketch Group recognitions in 2011 and 2012 placed the group within the documented record of Chicago's independent improv ecosystem during a period when the city's improv scene was expanding beyond the institutional dominance of Second City and iO. The recognition documented an audience for theatrically produced, genre-committed improv that could compete for visibility with the established institutions.

Wohl's subsequent move from stage-based improv into digital comedy production through the Try Guys and BuzzFeed platforms reflects a career adaptation that many improv-trained performers made during the 2010s as YouTube and social media created new distribution infrastructure for comedy performance. His combination of live stand-up, collaborative comedy music touring, and digital video production represents a multi-channel approach to sustaining a performing career outside the established television and film pathways that have historically absorbed Chicago improv's most prominent alumni.

Legacy

Octavarius's recognition in the Chicago Reader's annual Best of Chicago poll in both 2011 and 2012 gave the ensemble a documented position in the record of Chicago's independent improv scene during the period of the city's greatest improv institutional density. The group's ISU Improv Mafia lineage reflects the reach of university-based improv training into the professional Chicago improv ecosystem, demonstrating that ensemble cohorts formed outside the traditional Second City and iO training hierarchies could achieve peer-recognized quality within Chicago's improv community.

Wohl's association with the Try Guys platform and with Lewberger placed him within a network of digital comedy producers whose combined audience substantially exceeded the reach of any individual Chicago theater, connecting improv-trained performers to audiences measured in millions of YouTube subscribers. His career trajectory from university improv through independent Chicago ensemble work to digital comedy production represents one model for how improv training translates into sustained performing careers in the digital media landscape.

Early Life and Training

Brian Wohl attended Illinois State University, graduating in 2007. He was a member of ISU's Improv Mafia, the university's student improv organization, and met Keith Habersberger, later of The Try Guys, during their overlapping years at ISU.