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Show Description
Based on one audience suggestion (a title for a play that has yet to be written) The Improvised Shakespeare Co. creates a fully improvised play in Elizabethan style. Each of the players has brushed up on his “thee’s” and “thou’s” to bring you an evening of off-the-cuff comedy using the language and themes of William Shakespeare. Any hour could be filled with power struggles, star-crossed lovers, sprites, kings, queens, princesses, sword-play, rhyming couplets, asides, insults, persons in disguise and all that we’ve come to expect from the pen of the Great Bard. The night could reveal a tragedy, comedy, or history. Nothing is planned-out, rehearsed, or written. Each play is completely improvised, so each play is entirely new! Watch a sample video!
Show History
The Improvised Shakespeare Company, founded in 2005, has been performing its critically-acclaimed show every Friday night at the world famous iO Theater in Chicago for over six years and continues to entertain audiences around the globe with its touring company. The ISC has been featured at the Piccolo Spoleto Fringe Festival, Off Broadway in New York City, the Bumbershoot Music and Arts Festival, UCB’s Del Close Marathon, and the prestigious Just For Laughs festival in Montreal and Chicago. It has been named Chicago's best improv group by both the Chicago Reader and the Chicago Examiner and has received a New York Nightlife Award for "Best Comedic Performance by a Group". The ISC was recently honored by the Chicago Improv Foundation as its "Ensemble of the Year".