Rick Crom

Rick Crom (born March 15, 1957, in Chicago, Illinois) is an American improviser, comedian, Broadway actor, and musical theatre composer who co-founded Chicago City Limits in 1977 with six other graduates of The Second City's workshop program. He served as the troupe's musical director and relocated with it to New York in 1979. His parallel career spans stand-up comedy at the Comedy Cellar, Broadway appearances in The Goodbye Girl, Footloose, and Urinetown, and the creation of NEWSical the Musical, a political satire that ran for approximately ten years on Theater Row.

Crom was born in Chicago and received his formative performance training through The Second City's workshop program, where he studied under Del Close. In 1977 he was one of seven co-founders of Chicago City Limits, alongside George Todisco, Linda Gelman, Bill McLaughlin, Carol Schindler, Paul Zuckerman, and Christopher Oyen. Crom served as the troupe's musical director, contributing piano accompaniment and creative leadership to the group's distinctive musical improv format. In 1979 the group relocated from Chicago to New York City.

In New York, Chicago City Limits established itself as one of the city's most enduring improv ensembles, performing at a succession of venues including the Jan Hus Playhouse (fourteen years) and the Broadway Comedy Club (2004 to 2013). Crom held credits as musical director, creator, and writer on the 1980 Chicago City Limits television special. The company appeared on The Today Show, Comedy Central, and PBS, had their own USA Network series Reel News, and ran corporate training seminars over more than thirty-seven years.

Simultaneously, Crom built a career as a nightclub stand-up comedian. He became a regular performer and permanent host at the Comedy Cellar in New York beginning in 1984, a role he held for more than fifteen years. His television comedy credits include Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn, Chappelle's Show, and The Chris Rock Show. He has performed across the United States, in Australia and Canada, and on cruise ships.

Crom appeared in the original Broadway casts of The Goodbye Girl (1993), Footloose (1998), and Urinetown (2001, as Tiny Tom and Dr. Billeaux). Additional theatre credits include Merrily We Roll Along off-Broadway (1994), Fiorello! with Encores! (1994), and The Bedwetter off-Broadway (2022).

He wrote the book, music, and lyrics for NEWSical the Musical, a political satirical revue that opened in 2004 and ran for approximately ten years on Theater Row, also playing Studio 54 and touring nationally. The show received multiple Drama Desk Award nominations for Outstanding Lyrics and Outstanding Revue. His later screen credits include Steven Spielberg's The Post, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, House of Cards, and Ray Donovan. In 2007 he developed the course Stand-Up Comedy for Actors at the New York Conservatory for Dramatic Arts, later expanding it to the Comedy Cellar and the Stella Adler Studio of Acting.

Historical Context

Crom's co-founding of Chicago City Limits in 1977 placed him within the first generation of troupes to emerge directly from The Second City's workshop program. The group's relocation to New York in 1979 predated the Upright Citizens Brigade's arrival by nearly two decades, making Chicago City Limits one of the earliest vehicles for transplanting Chicago-trained improv to New York audiences. The troupe's Del Close lineage connected it directly to the foundational pedagogy of long-form improvisation, though the company developed its own musical-improv identity distinct from the Harold-based tradition.

Crom's dual career in improv and musical theatre reflects a broader pattern in which performers trained in improvisational ensemble work carry those skills into scripted theatre, finding that the spontaneity, listening, and collaborative awareness developed in improv serve them equally well in musical comedy and dramatic roles.

Teaching Philosophy

Crom's teaching at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre centers on the game-based methodology that defines the UCB's curriculum. His approach to beginner and intermediate students emphasizes the foundational skills that make game-of-the-scene work possible: strong initiations that establish clear relationships and environments, active listening that allows performers to respond to what is actually being offered rather than what was anticipated, and committed character behavior that generates the unusual but logical reality that becomes the scene's game.

His character work instruction reflects the UCB's concern with identifying the "base reality" of a scene: the established facts from which any departure can be recognized as unusual and therefore potentially game-worthy. Crom teaches performers to establish base reality quickly and clearly at the scene's opening, to recognize the moment when the unusual thing has been introduced, and to heighten that unusual thing in the way that is most true to the characters' established logic.

His extensive classroom experience at UCB has made him one of the more seasoned transmitters of the UCB method at the institutional level, and his teaching has contributed to the training of a large number of performers who have moved through UCB's curriculum into performing ensembles.

Legacy

Chicago City Limits, which Crom co-founded, operated continuously in New York for nearly four decades, making it one of the longest-running improv ensembles in the city's history. The troupe demonstrated that improv companies rooted in the Chicago tradition could build sustained audiences in New York outside the institutional frameworks of UCB, Magnet, or the PIT.

Crom's teaching work, particularly the Stand-Up Comedy for Actors course at the Comedy Cellar and the Stella Adler Studio of Acting, bridges the worlds of improvisation, stand-up, and classical actor training. By bringing improv-informed comedy instruction into conservatory settings, he has helped establish improvisational skills as a recognized component of professional actor development. NEWSical the Musical's decade-long run demonstrated that the political satire sensibility cultivated in improv and sketch comedy could sustain a commercial theatrical production in the competitive New York market.