I Am Part of the Resistance Inside Improvised Shakespeare
I perform with the ensemble, but like-minded colleagues and I are definitely feminists, and like… some of us even went to the women’s march.
Today I am taking the rare step of publishing an anonymous Op-Ed essay. I have done so at the request of the author, a senior official within Improvised Shakespeare whose identity is known to me and whose four shows a week would be jeopardized by its disclosure. Publishing this essay anonymously is the only way to deliver an important perspective that will ultimately confuse anyone outside of the Chicago comedy community. I invite you to submit a question about the essay and my vetting process here.
Improvised Shakespeare is facing a test to its position as one of the few ensembles in Chicago improv that refuses to allow women to audition.
It’s not just that enraged feminists loom large. Or that pretty much every show we do is exactly the same. Or even that we are an all male cast.
The dilemma-which the older men in the company do not fully grasp-is that many of the members in the ensemble honestly love playing with women, and like if they had a sister that wanted to audition they would for sure stand up for her.
I would know. I am one of them.
To be clear, ours is not the popular resistance of making facebook groups to discuss the constant harassment women and minorities face within the improv community. We want the ensemble to succeed and think that the weird shirts and socks we wear look super dope.
But we believe our first duty is to our community. We acknowledge that some ensemble members act in a manner that is detrimental toward having literally one fucking woman play with us.
That is why many new members have vowed to do what we can to like maybe let a chick audition or something while thwarting the idea that is what Shakespeare would have wanted. Like who the fuck am I to tell Dina Facklis or like Susan Messing no. They were my favorite teachers.
The root of the problem is the group’s insistence that the reason for excluding women is because they were not allowed to perform on the stage during Shakespeare’s lifetime. Anyone who has studied Shakespeare knows that that dude was wild as hell and probably didn’t give a single fuck about a goddamned improv troupe in Chicago and literally his biggest supporter was A WOMAN.
Although all of us claim to be feminists, we show little affinity for making any tangible moves to support women; we don’t ask them to audition, we don’t let them rehearse with us, and we play the female characters in our show as outdated stereotypes of what a feminine character should be.
In addition to being one of the few shows at iO that makes a profit, our impulses are generally sexist and degrading.
Don’t get me wrong, there are bright spots that the near-ceaseless negative coverage of the ensemble anywhere outside of iO fails to capture; one time a kid told us he would think about reading Hamlet after seeing one of our shows.
But these successes have come despite-not because-of the ensembles weak excuses as to why women cannot play, because they aren’t good enough, there’s no interest, and also, like I already said, Shakespeare didn’t want women doing improv I guess. Come to think of it, neither did Del Close? Hm.
From the iO bar and shared uber pools, ensemble members will privately admit that there’s like at least one chill girl who would probably be great in the show. But they also kinda want to sleep with her and that takes precedent.
Rehearsals veer off topic and off the rails, we engage in repetitive stories, and our stubbornness results in justifications that are half-baked, ill-informed, and really fucking stupid.
“I honestly think some women are funny” a member complained to me recently, exasperated by having to tell another Level 5 student that there was no way she could audition.
The erratic behavior would be more concerning if it weren’t for unsung heroes in and around Improvised Shakespeare. Some of us have been cast as villains in these facebook groups. But in private, we mostly voted for Hillary, and have even gone with some of our ex-girlfriends when they needed to get abortions or whatever.
It may be a cold comfort in this chaotic era, but Improvisers should know that there are adults in the room. We fully recognize what is happening. And we are trying to do what’s right even though we aren’t trying super hard.
The result is a two-track justification process.
Take the main excuse; in public and private, members of the ensemble believe that our hands are tied when it comes to allowing female performers because Shakespeare didn’t.
Anyone with a brain has noted, though, that we don’t follow any other rules of Shakespeare’s society, like wearing arsenic based makeup, not living beyond 15, and not performing on Thursdays.
On sexism for instance, members of the ensemble were reluctant to admit that sexism is ultimately the reason we don’t cast women. We complained for weeks that we were getting boxed into further confrontations about this bullshit policy, and expressed frustration that women were suddenly asking us to treat them equally. But most of us knew better-that anywhere outside of the Improvised Shakespeare Company, women should totally be treated equally.
This isn’t the work of so-called fake feminists. It’s the work of men who don’t really like women.
Given the public mockery, there were whispers about just bringing one woman on so that people would stop complaining. But we tried that once and, idk, she just like didn’t vibe you know?
The bigger concern is not that we don’t allow women to play with us, it’s that if we allow a woman to play with us, we have to admit that we are sexist and were wrong the whole time.
Senator John McCain put it best in his farewell letter. Improv is dumb and everyone on this team needs to get the fuck over themselves and apologize for being misogynistic assholes.
We no longer have senator McCain. But we will always have his example-a yes-and-err for not excluding women from his improv shows. Improvised Shakespeare may fear such honorable men, but they should revere them.
There is quiet a resistance within this ensemble of men who have bought t-shirts that say feminist on them. But the real difference will be made by women calming down and just going and doing Improvised Jane Austen because that’s basically the same thing.