Laraine Newman is an American actress, writer and comedian. She was part of the original cast of NBC's Saturday Night Live. She took an interest at improv in high school. After graduating, she studied mime with Marcel Marceau for a year in Paris. She then moved to Los Angeles and became a founding member of comedy improvisational group The Groundlings.
The Groundlings are an improvisational and sketch comedy troupe and school based in Los Angeles, California. The troupe was formed by Gary Austin in 1974 and uses an improv format influenced by Viola Spolin, whose improvisational theater techniques were used by Del Close and other members of the Second City, located in Chicago and later St. Louis. They used these techniques to produce sketches and improvised scenes. Its name is taken from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Act III, Scene II: "...to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumbshows and noise." In 1975 the troupe purchased and moved into its current location on Melrose Avenue.
Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist is an American adult animated sitcom that originally ran on Comedy Central from May 28, 1995, to February 13, 2002. The series starred the voice talents of Jonathan Katz, H. Jon Benjamin, and Laura Silverman. The show was created by Burbank, California, production company Popular Arts Entertainment, with Jonathan Katz and Tom Snyder, developed and first made by Popular Arts for HBO Downtown Productions. Boston-based Tom Snyder Productions became the hands-on production company, and the episodes were usually produced by Katz and Loren Bouchard. It won a Peabody Award in 1998.
Daniel Franzese is an American actor, comedian, and activist best known for his roles in director Larry Clark's Bully and as Damian in Tina Fey's 2004 feature film Mean Girls. Franzese is the creator of several live comedy shows, including the 2011 rock opera Jersey Shoresical: A Frickin' Rock Opera! and his one-man stand-up performance I've Never Really Made the Kind of Money to Become a Mess in 2013.
Gary Austin was an American improvisational theatre teacher, writer, and director who founded The Groundlings theatre company in 1974.
Janet Varney is an American actress, comedian, writer and producer, known for voicing Korra in the Nickelodeon animated television series The Legend of Korra, co-starring as Sheriff Evie Barret in the television series Stan Against Evil, her role as Becca Barbara in You're the Worst, hosting the JV Club podcast and co-hosting the Avatar: Braving the Elements podcast.
RiffTrax is an American company that produces scripted humorous commentary tracks which are synced to mostly public domain feature films, education shorts, and television episodes. With the talents of former Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K) cast members and writers, RiffTrax also produces several live shows each year which are broadcast to movie theaters. The style of commentating originated from MST3K, their earlier television series, in which they would similarly mock films aloud while watching them. As of February 2022, RiffTrax has riffed 460 feature films, 410 short films, and 16 TV episodes.
Tracy Ann Newman is an American television producer, writer, comedian and musician. Newman is a founding member of the improvisational theater troupe The Groundlings. She was co-creator and executive producer of the sitcom According to Jim (2001–2009). She is also a singer - songwriter, as well as an early member of The New Christy Minstrels and lead singer of Tracy Newman and The Reinforcements. She is the mother of artist/writer Charlotte Dean, with whom she co-directs the live comedy show Charlotte's Shorts.
BriTANicK is an internet sketch comedy duo from Atlanta, Georgia, that consists of Brian McElhaney and Nick Kocher. McElhaney graduated from the Atlanta International School and Kocher graduated from The Paideia School. They attended New York University together. The duo's videos have been featured on internet video sites including YouTube, CollegeHumor, Cracked, Break, and FunnyOrDie. BriTANicK was nominated by the ECNY Awards as Best Sketch Comedy Group in New York in 2008 and by Comedy Central's inaugural Comedy Awards for best web video. In 2012, BriTANicK appeared in Joss Whedon's 2012 adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing.
The 2012 Bonnaroo Music Festival was held June 7–10, 2012 in Manchester, Tennessee, United States, and marked the 11th time the festival has been held since its inception in 2002.
You're Whole is an American satirical television series created by Michael Ian Black for Adult Swim. The show parodies self-help infomercials and stars Black as the host, Randall Tyree Mandersohn. In it, Mandersohn advertises his systems of objects and actions designed to help people with their issues. It was the production of Abominable Pictures, with which Black originally consulted with the premise of the show in mind. Meanwhile, Michael Showalter, longtime collaborator of Black, served as the director.
Charlotte Dean is a writer, illustrator, and visual artist known for writing and co-directing the show Charlotte's Shorts, along with Emmy award writer, director, and producer Tracy Newman.
Jimmy Fowlie is an actor and writer who publishes YouTube content. Formerly of The Groundlings, he produced Go-Go Boy Interrupted, an LGBT-themed comedy web series based on his live sketch comedy show of the same name. He is also known for writing and performing as Emma Stone in the one-woman Off-Broadway show So Long Boulder City.
Charlotte Newhouse is an actress and writer known for creating, and starring in the Comedy Central series Idiotsitter, which premiered in 2014. She also appeared in Reno 911! (2006), Community (2009), The Man That I Was (2010), The Big Bang Theory (2010), Celebrity Impression (2010), Workaholics (2011), and Puss in Boots: The Three Diablos (2012).
Jessica Ruth McKenna is an American actress and comedian. McKenna trained with The Groundlings and at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, where she regularly performs. McKenna was one of the stars of Fox's Party Over Here, alongside Nicole Byer and Alison Rich, and currently hosts the podcast Off Book: The Improvised Musical.
Manon Lucy Mathews is an American comedian, actress, and social media personality. She is best known for her videos on Vine and her appearances in film and television.
Moses Jacob Storm is an American writer, actor, and comedian, who has appeared in film, television and radio.
The Speakeasy is an immersive theater production set in the 1920s during prohibition in the United States. The show takes place inside a San Francisco speakeasy and follows the stories of the staff, performers, and guests. The audience is free to move about the environment and craft their own experience in what some critics refers to as “choose-your-own-adventure.”
Dhaya Lakshminarayanan is a comedian, performance artist, TV host, and storyteller. She has performed at venues such as San Francisco's Asian Art Museum, the San Jose Museum of Art, the Siren Theater, San Francisco's Punchline Comedy Club and Cobb's Comedy Club, the Brava Theatre, Throckmorton Theatre, and others. She has also performed at comedy festivals such as SF Sketchfest 2015 and SF Sketchfest 2020; the Desi Comedy Fest, America's only South Asian comedy festival; and the Out of Bounds Comedy Festival. In 2019, Lakshminarayanan, Will Durst, and W. Kamau Bell appeared as guests on KQED in regard to the controversial proposed closure of the historic San Francisco Punchline Comedy Club. The same year, she regularly opened for Greg Proops at the Punchline.
Tom and Jerry in New York is an American animated television series that premiered on HBO Max on July 1, 2021. It is based on the Tom and Jerry characters and theatrical cartoon series created by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera and serves as a stand-alone sequel series to the film, Tom & Jerry, which was released in cinemas and HBO Max on February 26, 2021.
