Julie Seabaugh

Think traditional improv lacks substance? Lend your ears to the Improvised Shakespeare Company, a Chicago-based troupe creating smart, in-the-moment, Shakespeare-inspired narratives based off an audience-suggested title. And with Elizabethan drama, history and rhyming fairies aplenty, the more attention paid in English Lit, the harder the comedy hits. In addition to......

“I always wanted to be weird,” admits Saturday Night Live veteran Jeff Richards. On his new album, Jeff Richards: The Shingles 2009-2014, which came out last week, he reaches new levels of musical-comedy weirdness, combining dance beats and lyrics as weird and out-there as they come. The performer discovered a talent......

In a single-room Cypress Park office, comedians Al Madrigal and Bill Burr spearhead the efforts of the six dozen comics who make up the collective All Things Comedy. Their enterprise, which began in October 2012, emphasizes DIY over decor — concrete, brick, single corner computer, a green-felt poker table holding......

It took suffering a heart attack backstage at Largo following an April 2010 Sarah Silverman and Friends show for 47-year-old Todd Glass to make some significant life changes. But losing 30 pounds, taking Lipitor and quitting cigarettes only went so far. The physical improvements meant little without addressing deeper matters. Another two years would pass......

Carol Leifer grew up loving I Love Lucy like today's comedy fans loved Seinfeld. And as a writer on the seminal "Show About Nothing" (she was responsible for episodes including "The Lip Reader," "The Hamptons" and "The Rye"), Leifer deftly chiseled her experiences into the bedrock of an entertainment career approaching......

When the comedy industry looks at Neal Brennan, it sees a guy who co-wrote Half Baked and was nominated for three Emmys for writing, directing and producing Chappelle's Show. He can pop in to direct New Girl or The Mindy Project or Inside Amy Schumer, oversee a series of Funny...

Year one: three days, three venues on Main Street between Second and Third, 30 shows, local comedy linchpins Marc Maron, Maria Bamford, Patton Oswalt and Pete Holmes in headlining spots. Year two: four days, five outposts on that same downtown stretch, 50 shows, the return of vets like Paul F...

Last night's stand-up show 50 First Jokes didn't rely on the normal comic-audience relationship. Hosted by John F. O'Donnell and produced by Loud Village's Jeremy Burke (Comedy Night at Best Fish Taco, Holy F*ck), the fourth annual L.A. show, featuring 50 local comics telling the first joke they wrote since......