The Compass Players was an improvisational theatre revue active from 1955 to 1958 in Chicago and St. Louis. Founded by David Shepherd and Paul Sills, it is considered to be the first improvisational theater in the United States.
Viola Spolin was an American theatre academic, educator and acting coach. She is considered an important innovator in 20th century American theater for creating directorial techniques to help actors to be focused in the present moment and to find choices improvisationally, as if in real life. These acting exercises she later called Theater Games and formed the first body of work that enabled other directors and actors to create improvisational theater. Her book Improvisation for the Theater, which published these techniques, includes her philosophy and her teaching and coaching methods, and is considered the "bible of improvisational theater". Spolin's contributions were seminal to the improvisational theater movement in the U.S. She is considered to be the mother of Improvisational theater. Her work has influenced American theater, television and film by providing new tools and techniques that are now used by actors, directors and writers.
Sinéad Moira Cusack is an Irish actress. Her first acting roles were at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, before moving to London in 1969 to join the Royal Shakespeare Company. She has won the Critics' Circle and Evening Standard Awards for her performance in Sebastian Barry's Our Lady of Sligo.
Jeremy Samuel Piven is an American actor and comedian. He is best known for his role as Ari Gold in the comedy series Entourage, for which he won a Golden Globe Award and three consecutive Emmy Awards. He also starred in the British period drama Mr Selfridge, which tells the story of the man who created the English department store Selfridges, and portrayed Spence Kovak on Ellen DeGeneres's sitcom Ellen.
Speed-the-Plow is a 1988 play by David Mamet that is a satirical dissection of the American movie business. As stated in The Producer's Perspective, "this is a theme Mamet would revisit in his later films Wag the Dog (1997) and State and Main (2000)". As quoted in The Producer's Perspective, Jack Kroll of Newsweek described Speed-the-Plow as "another tone poem by our nation's foremost master of the language of moral epilepsy."
Harand Camp of the Theatre Arts is a performing arts summer camp located at Carthage College in Kenosha, Wisconsin and based in Evanston, Illinois.
Richard John Cusack was an American actor, filmmaker and documentary maker.
Ann Cusack is an American actress and singer. She had roles in Multiplicity (1996), A League of Their Own (1992), and The Informant! (2009). Additionally, she has made guest appearances in a number of television series, including Grey's Anatomy, Scandal, One Tree Hill, Charmed, Ghost Whisperer, The Unit, Boston Legal, Bones, Frasier, Ally McBeal, Criminal Minds, Private Practice, Fargo, Better Call Saul, The Boys, and The Good Doctor.
Sarah Ruhl is an American playwright, poet, professor, and essayist. Among her most popular plays are Eurydice (2003), The Clean House (2004), and In the Next Room (2009). She has been the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award for a distinguished American playwright in mid-career. Two of her plays have been finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and she received a nomination for Tony Award for Best Play. In 2020, she adapted her play Eurydice into the libretto for Matthew Aucoin's opera of the same name. Eurydice was nominated for Best Opera Recording at the 2023 Grammy Awards.
Bernard Piven was an American stage actor, director, and co-founder of the Playwrights Theatre Club, a forerunner of The Second City
The Piven Theatre Workshop is located in Evanston, Illinois and was founded by Joyce and Byrne Piven. For over 30 years, it has existed both as a professional theatre company and a training center for children and adults. Famous alumni to come out of the program include Jeremy Piven, John Cusack, Aimee Garcia, Joan Cusack, Ann Cusack, Aidan Quinn, Laurel Holloman, Lili Taylor, Ann Lippert, Julian Bailey, playwright Sarah Ruhl and Kate Walsh.
Paul Sills was an American director and improvisation teacher, and the original director of Chicago's The Second City.
David Gwynne Shepherd was an American producer, director, and actor noted for his innovative work in improvisational theatre. He founded and/or co-founded the Playwrights Theatre Club, The Compass Players, the Canadian Improv Games, and the ImprovOlympic.
Ann Helene Lippert is a comedian and actress. She directed the audience interactive comedy Joni and Gina's Wedding, which she co-created and co-wrote with Marianne Basford and Hilarity Ensues Productions in 2002.
Rafer Weigel is an American broadcast journalist who most recently was an early morning weekday news anchor and general assignment reporter at WFLD-Channel 32 in Chicago. Formerly, he was the weekend sports anchor and reporter at WLS-TV in Chicago, the sports anchor for CNN HLN’s Morning Express with Robin Meade and also an actor.
The New Actors Workshop was a two-year acting conservatory in New York City founded by Master Teachers Mike Nichols, George Morrison and Paul Sills in 1988. The school offered a unique, dual-track curriculum combining Stanislavski-based technique with Viola Spolin Theater Games. The workshop stopped accepting students in 2010.
The Playwright's Theatre Club was founded in Chicago, Illinois in 1953 by Paul Sills, David Shepherd and Eugene Troobnick. The theatre was noted for its original treatment and productions of classic plays as well as premiering original works, and was credited for the creation of The Compass Players and The Second City.
Shira Piven is an American director, actress and producer. She directed the 2014 film Welcome to Me starring Kristen Wiig.
Amazingrace Coffeehouse was an influential counterculture music and performance venue in Evanston, Illinois, during the 1970s. Run by a collective called the Amazingrace Family, it was known for its welcoming atmosphere, eclectic menu, excellent sound system, and respectful audiences. Amazingrace was the top music club in the Chicago Reader poll 1973-1975, plus Number 3 in the 1975 wrap-up of "Who's Who in Chicago's Alternative Culture". Performers from a wide variety of genres played at Amazingrace from its beginning on the campus of Northwestern University until its final incarnation at The Main on Chicago Avenue in Evanston.
