The builders, teachers, and performers behind the form.

Alan Myerson (born 1936) is a theatre and television director who co-founded The Committee, the politically satirical improvisational troupe that operated in San Francisco's North Beach from 1963 to 1972. A Second City alumnus who directed the company's second ensemble in Chicago, Myerson brought the improv-revue model to San Francisco and shaped it toward explicitly political and activist content, creating one of the most historically distinct improvisational companies in American comedy history. He subsequently directed more than two hundred television episodes for major network series and made his feature film debut with Steelyard Blues, starring Donald Sutherland and Jane Fonda.

Ali Farahnakian is a New York-based improv performer, teacher, and founder of The People's Improv Theater (The PIT), which he established in New York City on December 6, 2002, as a tribute to his mentor Del Close. A founding member of the Upright Citizens Brigade ensemble in Chicago, a writer on Saturday Night Live's 25th anniversary season, and a graduate of ImprovOlympic under Del Close, Farahnakian built The PIT into one of New York's significant independent improv training institutions, with notable alumni including Ellie Kemper, Kristen Schaal, and Hannibal Buress.

Amy Poehler (born 1971) is a performer, writer, producer, and co-founder of the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre whose career runs from training under Del Close in Chicago through SNL, Parks and Recreation, and decades of sustained creative leadership in American comedy. She trained at iO and The Second City in the early 1990s, helped found the UCB ensemble in 1996, and built a long-form improv institution in New York that became one of the defining training pipelines of the following generation. Her importance to improv history begins well before her television career and extends through the institutional infrastructure she helped create.

Andrew Moskos is a Chicago-born improv performer, director, and co-founder of Boom Chicago, the English-language improv comedy theatre he established in Amsterdam in 1993 with childhood friend and Northwestern classmate Pep Rosenfeld and fellow Northwestern graduate Ken Schaefle. Over thirty years, Boom Chicago became the most internationally prominent American-tradition improv theatre outside the United States, launching the careers of Seth Meyers, Jordan Peele, Jason Sudeikis, Brendan Hunt, Joe Kelly, Amber Ruffin, and Kay Cannon, among dozens of others who collectively contributed to approximately fifty television productions. Moskos co-authored 'Boom Chicago Presents the 30 Most Important Years in Dutch History' (Akashic Books, 2023), with forewords by Seth Meyers and Jordan Peele.

Armando Diaz is a Harvey, Illinois-born improviser, director, and teacher who trained at ImprovOlympic under Del Close, at the Annoyance Theatre under Mick Napier, and through the Second City Conservatory before becoming a central figure in the development of long-form improvisation in both Chicago and New York. He is the namesake of The Armando Diaz Experience, Theatrical Movement and Hootenanny, a monologue-driven long-form show that premiered at iO Chicago in 1995 with a founding cast including Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Matt Besser, Ian Roberts, Rachel Dratch, Neil Flynn, Adam McKay, and David Koechner. The show ran every Monday night at iO Chicago for decades and is cited as the longest-running improv show in history. The Armando format it established directly influenced ASSSSCAT at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre. Diaz co-founded the Magnet Theater in New York in 2005 and remains its co-owner and primary director.

Bernie Sahlins (1922-2013) was the producer, director, and co-founder of The Second City who transformed Chicago improvisation from an experimental breakthrough into one of the most durable comedy institutions in North America. A University of Chicago graduate who had already produced at the Studebaker Theatre and co-founded Playwrights Theatre Club, Sahlins invested the initial capital to open The Second City on North Wells Street in December 1959 alongside Paul Sills and Howard Alk, then stewarded the company through its most consequential decades of growth. Under his watch, Second City launched the careers of John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Gilda Radner, Bill Murray, John Candy, Martin Short, and Tina Fey, developed the Toronto company that produced SCTV, and established the producing model that Andrew Alexander extended after purchasing the company in 1985.

Charna Halpern (born 1952) is the Chicago producer, teacher, and institution-builder who co-founded ImprovOlympic with Del Close in 1981 and built it into iO Theater, the central Chicago home of long-form improvisation for four decades. Working first in David Shepherd's competition-based framework and then in sustained partnership with Close, Halpern provided the organizational structure, training curriculum, and institutional continuity that transformed the Harold from a workshop experiment into the dominant form in American long-form improv. She co-authored Truth in Comedy (1994) with Close and Kim Howard Johnson, trained Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Chris Farley, and Mike Myers, and facilitated the team pairings that launched the Upright Citizens Brigade.

Christine Keogh is an Australian improviser and co-founder of Impro Melbourne, Melbourne's longest-running improvisational theatre company, which she established in 1996 alongside Russell Fletcher. The company is grounded in Keith Johnstone's philosophy of improvisation and holds exclusive licenses in Victoria to perform Johnstone's proprietary formats: Theatresports, Gorilla Theatre, and Maestro Impro. Keogh is listed among Impro Melbourne's alumni, having performed with and helped build the organization from its founding.

David Shepherd (1924-2018) was the producer, organizer, and theatrical visionary who helped found Playwrights Theatre Club and The Compass Players in Chicago in the 1950s, then spent the following six decades advocating for improvisation as a civic and democratic practice. A Harvard-educated New Yorker who hitchhiked to Chicago in 1952, Shepherd conceived the Compass Players as a people's theater modeled on political cabaret and commedia dell'arte, one in which improvisation would make theater responsive to ordinary audiences rather than serve trained performers. He later created the Improvisation Olympics in New York in 1972, co-founded the Canadian Improv Games, and provided the original competitive framework that became ImprovOlympic. The Second City has stated that without David Shepherd there would be no Second City.

Ed Herbstman is a Chicago-raised improviser, director, writer, and educator who trained under Del Close at ImprovOlympic, performed with the Second City National Touring Company, co-founded iO West in Los Angeles, served three years as an NYPD officer in Brooklyn, and co-founded Magnet Theater in New York City in 2005 alongside Armando Diaz and Shannon Manning. A longtime teacher and faculty member at Magnet, he has also taught at Syracuse University and Columbia University, and his teaching philosophy centers on present-moment confidence and generosity of spirit.

Howard Alk was a Chicago-based filmmaker and theater co-founder who is credited with suggesting the name for The Second City, which he co-founded with Paul Sills and Bernard Sahlins in December 1959. He left the theater in the early 1960s to pursue filmmaking, founding The Film Group in Chicago and becoming one of the most significant documentary filmmakers to emerge from the city's cultural community. His documentary work included American Revolution 2 (1969) and The Murder of Fred Hampton (1971), and he was a long-term collaborator with Bob Dylan on multiple film projects. He died in January 1982.

Howard Jerome Gomberg was a Brooklyn-born actor, comedian, and improv innovator who spent most of his career in Canada and co-founded the Canadian Improv Games in 1977, creating the country's primary competitive improvisational comedy program for high school students. He also collaborated with David Shepherd on early Improv Olympics formats. Before and alongside his comedy career he worked as a professional wrestler, a football player, a folk singer, and a poet, and he built an extensive film and television acting career in Canada that included roles in Naked Lunch (1991), Barney's Version (2010), and Lucky Number Slevin (2006). He died in Hamilton, Ontario, on December 17, 2021.

Ian Roberts is a Queens-born comedian, actor, writer, and television producer who trained under Del Close in Chicago, performed with the Second City National Touring Company, and became a founding member of the Upright Citizens Brigade alongside Matt Besser in the early 1990s. He co-authored The Upright Citizens Brigade Comedy Improvisation Manual (2013) with Matt Besser and Matt Walsh, providing the most comprehensive written account of the UCB's Harold-based long-form methodology. He has also worked as an Emmy and Peabody Award-winning television showrunner.

Joe Bill is a Chicago-based improviser, director, teacher, and corporate trainer who co-founded The Annoyance Theatre with Mick Napier, Mark Sutton, and others in the late 1980s, performed in and directed more than sixty shows there over twelve years, and served as Director of Corporate Training at iO Chicago for fifteen years and as Guest Artist in Residence at The Second City Conservatory and Training Center for fifteen years. With Mark Sutton, he developed Power Improv, a workshop curriculum that extends the Annoyance performance philosophy into teaching contexts, which he has delivered at festivals, theaters, and universities across the United States, Canada, and Europe. He is a Senior Facilitator for The Ariel Group, a leadership consulting organization that has trained more than eighty Fortune 500 companies.

Keith Johnstone (1933-2023) was the British-Canadian teacher, director, and writer who created one of improv's two major international lineages, distinct from and parallel to the Chicago tradition. Developing his system at London's Royal Court Theatre in the late 1950s and 1960s, then maturing it at the University of Calgary and Loose Moose Theatre Company from 1972 onward, Johnstone built a practice grounded in status dynamics, mask work, narrative play, and competitive formats such as Theatresports. His books Impro (1979) and Impro for Storytellers (1999) became primary texts across dozens of countries, and Theatresports is performed under license in more than thirty nations. For improvisers outside the United States, Johnstone is frequently the foundational figure rather than a secondary one.

A founding member of the Annoyance Theatre who served as its managing director for nine years and performed in over 75 productions. Sutton was recruited from Indiana University by Mick Napier and later co-created BASSPROV with Joe Bill. He has performed, directed, and taught at The Second City.

Co-founder of the Upright Citizens Brigade and one of the UCB Four alongside Amy Poehler, Ian Roberts, and Matt Walsh. Besser co-created and starred in the UCB television show on Comedy Central. He hosts the podcast improv4humans and co-authored The Upright Citizens Brigade Comedy Improvisation Manual.

Co-founder of the Upright Citizens Brigade and one of the UCB Four. Born in Chicago, Walsh studied at Northern Illinois University before training at iO and The Second City. He is best known as an actor for his role as Mike McLintock in Veep.

Co-founder of the Loose Moose Theatre Company in Calgary alongside Keith Johnstone in 1977.

Mike Myers (born 1963) is a Canadian performer and writer whose career began in the Second City Toronto ensemble and ran through Saturday Night Live, Wayne's World, Austin Powers, and the Shrek franchise. He is one of the most commercially successful performers to emerge from the North American improv and sketch tradition, and his trajectory from Second City Toronto to global franchise stardom documents how the Canadian improv pipeline, parallel to but distinct from the Chicago lineage, produced performers capable of sustaining characters across multiple formats and decades. His foundation in ensemble improvisation shaped his character-building methods and his instinct for sustained comic personas.

A founding member of The Comedy Store Players in London in 1985 alongside Mike Myers and Kit Hollerbach. Mullarkey has been performing improvised comedy in London for nearly four decades. He is also a corporate communications consultant who applies improv principles to business contexts.

A Canadian improviser who trained under Keith Johnstone at Loose Moose Theatre beginning in 1983. Stiles served as Artistic Director of Rapid Fire Theatre in Edmonton from 1991 to 1996 and was a founding member of Die-Nasty. She later became Artistic Director of Impro Melbourne in Australia and is the author of Improvise Freely. She is widely recognized as one of the foremost international improv teachers.

Paul Sills (1927-2008) was the director, teacher, and theater builder who turned Viola Spolin's Theater Games into a public performance practice and co-founded both the Compass Players and The Second City. Born Paul Silverberg in Chicago, the son of Spolin and pharmacist Wilmer Silverberg, he served in the military before enrolling at the University of Chicago in 1948, where he entered the postwar student culture that became the seedbed of American improvisational theater. Through Playwrights Theatre Club, Compass Players, The Second City, Story Theater, and a long later career teaching at his Wisconsin Theater Game Center, Sills transformed his mother's pedagogical system into a living theatrical tradition.

Co-founder of Boom Chicago in Amsterdam in 1993 alongside Andrew Moskos. Rosenfeld has performed, directed, and produced comedy at Boom Chicago for over three decades and is a prominent figure in European English-language comedy.

Co-founder and Workshop Director of Bad Dog Theatre Company in Toronto, which he helped rebrand from Theatresports Toronto in 2003. MacLeod later founded Social Capital Theatre on the Danforth in Toronto.

Co-founder of Impro Melbourne in 1996. Fletcher has been a key figure in developing the Australian improv scene and has performed and taught improvisation in Melbourne for nearly three decades.

A founding member of the Annoyance Theatre and a performer and teacher at iO Theater. Messing has been called the funniest woman in Chicago by Chicago Magazine and has received the Improviser of the Year award from the Chicago Improv Festival. She has taught improvisation at DePaul University, the University of Chicago, and Loyola University.