Compass Co-Founder Returns to Chicago to Recreate the Birth of Improv Comedy 50 Years Ago.CHICAGO -- David Shepherd David Shepherd may refer to:
Saturday Night Live (SNL David Shepherd, now 80, will help direct the Off Off Campus Players in structures originally performed July 5, 1955 in a gypsy fortune teller's storefront on 55th street at a theater he co-founded with Paul Sills--unwittingly revolutionizing American comedy. The cast for the first COMPASS performance included Roger Bowen (Colonel Henry Blake For the British colonial administrator, see . Lieutenant Colonel Henry Braymore Blake is a fictional character introduced in the 1968 novel M*A*S*H, written by H. Richard Hornberger under the pen name of Richard Hooker. in MASH), Elaine May Elaine May (born Elaine Berlin on April 21, 1932 in Philadelphia) is a two-times Academy Award nominated director, screenwriter, and actress. She achieved her greatest fame, in the 1950s, from her improvisational comedy routines in partnership with Mike Nichols. (author of Primary Colors, The Birdcage and Heaven Can Wait) and Barbara Harris (Tony winner, Oscar nominee and star of Nashville). Others who launched careers at the politically and socially relevant theater included Alan Alda, Mike Nichols, Alan Arkin, Shelley Berman, Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara. At the commemorative event, co-sponsored by the University of Chicago Theater and the Chicago Improv Festival The Chicago Improv Festival is a non-profit comedy festival held annually in Chicago in late April and early May. It spotlights improvisational, sketch, and stand-up comedy. , Dan Meyer, University Archivist ARCHIVIST. One to whose care the archives have been confided. , will announce the establishment of the David Shepherd archives that chronicle the life of what was billed on the first poster as "a new kind of entertainment." The Regenstein Library's Special Collections Research Center will make the collection available to the public in the spring. Shepherd, "the Johnny Appleseed of Improv" according to Alan Arkin, will sign copies of ...That Movie in Your Head, (ISBN ISBN abbr. International Standard Book Number ISBN International Standard Book Number ISBN n abbr (= International Standard Book Number) → ISBN m : 0-9743995-0-7) the book he published in concert with the anniversary in which he describes, for the first time in print, his improv techniques. Available at www.gerepublishing.com. "Improv is one of the only art forms that is completely indigenous to this country," says Jonathan Pitts, producer of the anniversary performance. Shepherd will restage the exact line up from 1955, starting with The Living News, a format he created where players act out scenes inspired by the day's headlines. In The Game of Hurt, an improvised story based on a one-page scenario written by Sills, a husband will sell his wife to a steelworker he meets at a bar. 8 p.m., July 5, The Frances X. Kinahan Third Floor Theater, Reynolds Club, 5706. S. University Ave. $10 in advance (773) 702-3414. |
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