Chana Halpern, the driving force behind ImprovOlympic, makes a lousy first impression. Take my word for it. During one of her classes on the fundamentals of comedic improvisation, she abruptly stopped a student in the middle of his first scene and demanded he immediately fork over the tuition fee. I was that student, and at the time it seemed downright rude.
Then Halpern walks out wearing a black velvet dress with sparkling fringe. “Thank you for coming,” she says clutching the microphone. “This couldn’t have happened without the help of. . .” The list of people is extensive, reflecting a long struggle to make a lasting career out of improv theater.
In 1980 Halpern’s father took out a loan to buy a McDonald’s in Dixon, Illinois (it was his first franchise; he now owns three). Attending the grand opening, Halpern noticed a local radio reporter from WIXN doing a less-than-inspired job covering the event during a live broadcast. She comandeered the microphone and started interviewing customers, all the while promoting her dad’s business. That night she received a phone call from a radio station in Janesville, Wisconsin, the parent company of the Dixon station. They offered Halpern an on-air job in Dixon. “I couldn’t take it,’ she recalls. “I thought, ‘I’m a teacher. I don’t know how to do anything else.’”
Sills brought these ideas to the legendary Compass theater while at the University of Chicago. The Compass was founded in 1955 by David Shepherd, who wanted to form a theater based on the commedia dell’arte tradition of traveling bands of actors who use no script, just a loose scenario suggesting possible direction. All dialogue was extemporaneous, and actors took their cues from audience reactions (and eventually audience suggestions). Shepherd wished to wed the idea of the commedia troupe to the populist cabaret theater of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill, wittily playing off news of the day in songs and sketches.
