The Improvised Shakespeare Company

Show Description
Based on one audience suggestion (a title of a show that has never been written), The Improvised Shakespeare Company® creates a fully improvised Shakespearean masterpiece right before your eyes. Prepare for an evening of spontaneous comedy using the language and themes of William Shakespeare. Nothing has been planned out, rehearsed, or written. All of the dialogue is said for the first time, the characters are created as you watch, and if ever you’re wondering where the story is going…so are they! TimeOut Chicago calls it “Staggeringly Brilliant” and “Downright Hilarious!” You’ve never seen the Bard like this before!

Show History
The Improvised Shakespeare Company® is one of the funniest and most critically acclaimed improv troupes in the world. The ISC was founded in Chicago in 2005 where it ran to sold-out audiences at the iO Theatre for over a decade. Now it performs regularly at Los Angeles’s Largo at the Coronet for audiences that the LA Times calls, “Beatlemaniacal.” The ISC has sold out raucous shows at The Kennedy Center, Bonnaroo, San Francisco Sketchfest, the Bumbershoot Music and Arts Festival, The Just For Laughs festival in Montreal, and Outside Lands in San Francisco. It is featured regularly in NYC at 92nd St Y and Theatre 80 St Marks where it “plays to packed theaters with an atmosphere more like a rock club than a repertory house” (The New York Times). In 2018 Sir Patrick Stewart presented The ISC at the Soho Theatre in London. In the 2019-2020 season, The ISC was featured in the Broadway Series at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts where it wowed audiences throughout its178-show residency. ISC guest performers have included Jason Alexander, Bradley Whitford, and Patrick Stewart. It has been named Chicago’s best improv group by both the Chicago Reader and the Chicago Examiner and has received numerous awards in LA (Best of LA-LA Weekly), New York (New York Nightlife Awards), and Chicago (The Chicago Improv Foundation). It has been called “Staggeringly Brilliant” (TimeOut Chicago), “Indisputably Great” (Centerstage Chicago), “Mad Genius” (LA Times), Hilarious (LA Weekly, Seattle Times, Chicago Reader, TimeOut Chicago, Naples Daily News, CBC Manitoba, Winnipeg Free Press), and TimeOut New York simply says, “Don’t Miss Them. Seriously.”