iO and the Development of Modern Improv
Some of the History of the Now Shuttered Improv Institution
The historian in me knows to properly analyze and contextualize the legacy of a person, place, or event you need time. iO (I’m contractually obligated to now say ‘formerly ImprovOlympic(s)) closed yesterday. In fact, there’s a good chance it might still re-emerge with a radically redesigned leadership and operational model — I wrote about that yesterday (fingers crossed). If not as iO, then something else will step into iO’s void (fingers crossed). Writing about history and legacy less than 24 hours after an event is…stupid. But, alas, here we are.
iO meant a lot of things to a lot of people. A vast majority of that was very good and the theatre is rightly cited as a major force in the development of American comedy. But there was also a lot of pain and trauma that happened under the flag of iO. Social media feeds and blogs are full of tributes to what the theatre meant to various individuals. Those tributes tend to be different depending on the identity of the improviser. And that tells us quite a bit about the company’s legacy.
The theatre was plagued by institutional sexism and racism, as has been the case at nearly every major American comedic institution (and every major American theatre…and every major American…
