Mike Balzer

Mike Balzer has been writing and performing sketch across the country since 2003. He worked this summer as a contributing writer for season one of The Onion Sports Network, an original series based on the popular newspaper set to premiere on Comedy Central in January 2011. His writing has also been featured in publications such as McSweeney’s, NewsGroper, and Sports On Computer. He’s collaborated as a writer, performer and director with some of the best sketch groups in the country, from The Cody Rivers Show in Bellingham, WA to MEAT in New York and Seeder and Lee in LA, in addition to coast-to-coast performances and numerous film festival screenings with The Animal Club Sketch Comedy Collective from 2002-2007. He studied mime and physical performance with former Mumenshanz cast member Mark Thomspon, whom he had the great honor of performing alongside in Thompson’s Le Maitresse et le Megalithe, which toured across Brittany, France in 1999 and 2001. His one man silent sketch show Loudmouth recently ran at iO to modest acclaim, and he also plays the Rich Eisen character in iO’s weekly football pregame show Pro Football Tomorrow. He’s been serving as iO’s Creative Director since 2006.