Featured Shows
We love all of our shows equally but here’s some we think you’ll really like. To see a list of all upcoming shows, click the View All Show button down below.
Improvised Shakespeare Company
Every Friday and Saturday at 7:30pm– since 2006! Inspired by one audience suggestion, these dazzling players create a brand-new Shakespearean masterpiece right before your eyes. Come witness the shows critics have called “staggeringly brilliant.”
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Improvised Jane Austen
Every Saturday at 7:30pm, Improvised Jane Austen is a comedic ensemble that creates unscripted performances using Jane Austen’s tropes, themes, and language. Playing in Austen’s world, Improvised Jane Austen’s stories delight 21st century audiences with a modern sense and sensibility. Come for the humor, stay for the heart! Throughout the show’s run, Improvised Jane Austen’s has been Chicago Reader Recommended, named a PerformInk Critics’ Pick, voted Best sketch/improv troupe 2019 in the Reader’s Best of Chicago, and was featured on WTTW playlist, in Time Out, on WGN’s Daytime Chicago and most recently on CBS News Chicago.
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Whirled News Tonight
Every Saturday at 7:30pm. Twenty years running! The audience provides inspiration by picking their top stories from the day’s news. From these journalistic suggestions, a team of experienced improvisers create a fast-paced, topical, intelligent, & hilarious show.
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Devil’s Daughter
Every Friday at 7:30pm! Devil’s Daughter features a cast of seasoned comedians who have performed together in Chicago and around the country for over a decade. This award-winning team has their own unique spin on a classic improv form, The Harold, and is known for their solo scenes, artistic style, and dastardly sense of humor.
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CRUD COUNTRY
April 18th at 9:30 — Bizarre, sweaty, and stupid! Sketch comedy group “CRUD” brings their brain melting live show to the iO Theater.
CRUD COUNTRY is a variety show featuring performances from some of Chicago’s dumbest comedians, musicians, and entertainers of all kinds. Leave your neurons at the door and suck the Kool-Aid from a hose! Featuring: CRUD, Clare Ruddy ,Joey Bednarski, Al Wells
CRUD COUNTRY is a variety show featuring performances from some of Chicago’s dumbest comedians, musicians, and entertainers of all kinds. Leave your neurons at the door and suck the Kool-Aid from a hose! Featuring: CRUD, Clare Ruddy ,Joey Bednarski, Al Wells
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Thawed Out
The iO Theater, in collaboration with Truth Zone Records, announces a new single day music and arts festival: Thawed Out. On April 26th, 2025, the festival will be held at the historic improv comedy theater’s Lincoln Park location, located at 1501 N Kingsbury St, and will feature two stages, one indoor and one outdoor, and will feature the mixed media visual art of 15 iconic Chicago artists.
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Hot Seat
Saturdays at 9:30pm, starting Feb 1, the 2019 Reader-Recommended show is back featuring some of iO’s best players! Hot Seat invites the audience to ask the questions that we’re afraid to answer. Get ready for some good old-fashioned truth telling and improv that’s sure to melt your face off!”
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Phony Award Winning presents: Improvised Company
Phony Award Winning Musical presents: Improvised Company! A fully improvised musical with singing and dancing in the style of Stephen Sondheim’s Company based on an audience suggestion Directed by Mick Napier with musical Direction by Lisa McQueen & Laura Hall
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Voila! The Improvised Musical
The most polished made-up musical strikes every Friday night at iO! From cabaret to comedy, heartfelt scenework is intermixed with improvised musical numbers in this two-act fully improvised musical. Every show is unique, so come back each week for the opening and closing night of a brand new theatrical production.
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The Creamboy Show!
Every Saturday at 9:30pm. Comedy so good you’ll lick your lips and pat your belly. Longform improv from iO House team CREAMBOY, featuring different opening acts each week. Don’t miss this show, who knows, you could become the lucky audience member chosen as the Cream of the Week. Get your tickets now!
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Kohl’s Cash presents: TGIF
Start your weekend off laughing at one of the hottest improv shows in Chicago! Every Friday at 9:30pm , iO house team Kohl’s Cash presents a completely original show based on your suggestions. With different openers every week, drink specials, and clean restrooms, you’ll for sure be saying TGIF (That’s Good Improv Fridays).
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The Armando Diaz Theatrical Experience and Hootenanny
Mondays at 7pm! Created in 1995 by iO alum Armando Diaz (not the Italian general), the Armando is a historic improvisational form where actors improvise a series of interconnected scenes based on the true events and life experiences told from a guest-monologist. Featuring new players and a surprise celebrity guest each week, come watch the longest running comedy show in Chicago at it’s originating home, the iO Theater!
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Bluebird Improv
Bluebird Improv is a collective of some of the best improvisers on the planet.
The show is inspired by a short conversation with audience members and what follows is an evening of never before (and never again..) scenes and characters that cascade into a hilarious and original freewheeling show – in one act. Featuring: Matt Walsh , Joe Canale , Brad Morris plus a special surprise guest!
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Harold Happy Hour
Every Thursday with iO house teams Kismet, Big Deborah and Lil Sluggers. Sit back, grab a cold beverage of your choice, and let the professionals steer you through an evening of high energy, eccentric, emotionally charged sets guaranteed to leave you feeling blown away.
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FAMILY
Family is a completely improvised show that follows one family, within one living room, over the course of one day. Our cast of veteran comedians uses inspiration from the audience to generate 60 minutes of side splitting, tear inducing comedy that poses the question “Is every family as dysfunctional as mine?” Each week our core cast is joined by special guest improvisers who help us explore how complicated relationships can be with the people who’ve known you since birth.
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Deep Schwa
Every Sunday at 8pm– Chicago’s longest-running Harold team returns to iO to bring their unique blend of chaos and creativity to iO’s signature form The Harold. Formed in 1996 Deep Schwa has over 50 members, has done over 1,000 shows, performed in theaters all over Chicago and beyond. Made up of a cast of Chicago’s most seasoned and eclectic players and teachers it’s a show perfect for the improv initiate and those just looking to chase away the Sunday scaries. Every Sunday, 29 years and counting.
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ComedySportz
Presented by Malarkey Comedy. Chicago’s longest running short-form improv show (founded in 1987) and the only comedy show in Chicago EVERYONE is welcome at – from age 8 to 80, our inclusive ‘everyone is welcome’ approach to comedy makes us perfect for patrons of all ages. Fridays and Saturdays!
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Freak of the Week: 2 Dead Ass Hoes
Tuesdays at 8pm! Freak of the Week is fast, furious two-person improvisation. Where did those hoes go? For eight weeks watch veteran improvisers Claudia Martinez and Beth Melewski weave wild characters and tell tall tales based on your suggestion. With a fresh new improv group opening for them every week, you’ll want to come back again and again to see what happens next!
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Loose Four Open Mic
Let loose and test out roughly four minutes of material every Tuesday at iO Theater. LOOSE FOUR is hosted by Maureen Nolan, with a new featured comic each week! POC, LGBT+ people, and women prioritized! FREE to attend and FREE to participate. SIGNUP begins: 5:30PM (in-person at the box office) SHOW starts: 6:00PM
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Taking My Lumps
One Night Only, May 21st at 7:30pm! When actor and comedian CHRIS CAFERO discovered a lump growing in his… private area, it was no laughing matter. Until now! Chris will be turning his pain into audiences’ pleasure in his brand new solo show TAKING MY LUMPS. Written and performed by Cafero and directed by Emmy nominee Stephen Guarino, Taking My Lumps combines Chris’ skills as a stand-up, story-teller and sketch-performer to find the humor in all of the bumps and bruises he’s taken along the way. This marks the solo show debut for Cafero, who was recently named one of the Just For Laughs New Faces of Comedy in 2023.
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SAM: An Existential Comedy Solo Musical
National tour of the award-winning solo musical “SAM”! Hollywood satire! Existential comedy! Meta improv sequences! Broadway parodies! Join Sam Labrecque on a hilarious and heartfelt journey of identity through her pre-successful career as an actor in Hollywood. For fans of “SNL”, Bo Burnham, and “La La Land”.
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Escándalo
Fridays at 7:30pm! — ESCÁNDALO is your weekly escape into the heart of Latine culture in Chicago! We’re a collective with a mission of creating a welcoming and inclusive space for everyone – especially trans, femme, non-binary, and disabled creatives—through bold, hilarious comedy. Enjoy a rotating cast of Latine improvisers, solo performers, and special guests. All Latines are welcome, regardless of background or fluency.
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Gender Spiral – Live In Chicago
Gender Spiral is the podcast that discusses all things gender with the experts on the subject: trans and queer people. Come spiral with hosts Ally Beardsley and Babette Thomas as they record two episodes LIVE at iO! Each night will feature interviews with different special guests (to be announced soon), so join us for either night- or both! May 23rd and 24th!
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Improvised Housewives of iO
Saturdays at 9:30pm starting May 3rd– The Improvised Housewives of iO returns for a fourth season of this totally unscripted parody of the Real Housewives franchise. Each Saturday, catch a new episode and watch the storylines unfold throughout the season, leading up to our dramatic reunion the final week.
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Comedy Dance Chicago presents 8-BITS
We’re back with all new bits! This joyful mixture of sketch, dance, and physical comedy is filled with a variety of hilarious characters that are sure to have you laughing along in recognition. Grab some friends and join us for some fun that’s sure to level up your Friday night!
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Food & Drink
Grab a bite before, during or after the show
Bar and Kitchen open at 4:30 pm
Wed-Sun
Open at 11:30am on Sat and Sun
No tickets required, all ages welcome
The skills we use to train talent on our stages are the same skills applied in collaborative settings across the entertainment and corporate world, in writer’s rooms, board rooms and beyond.
